Lounge Singer

my favorite cargo sled (for loading pallets of stuff onto planes)

A chapter title I wish I had written, from The Career Woman's Cookbook,

in the NZ lounge of the historic Hillary Hut.

I'm afraid to jinx it, but I'm pretty excited about all the music happening.  My roomie has insider status at a building I've eyed for years but never been in: the Paint Barn doubles as a rehearsal space after business hours.  This week, I played piano and clarinet and guitar and cello (barely) and sang.  Yes, there is a nice new cello here, and I can scrape the bow across with some satisfying resonance at least half the time.  It was a fun discovery made possible by repeated power outages.  All is not well with our electrical supply, and we went through three of five back-up generators.  (Don't ask me why or how the generators failed mechanically; rumors abound of bolts sheering, fan blades expelled, and improbable gremlin destruction.)  Decades of delayed maintenance and power overdraw is finally catching up with the system, thankfully during summer while sunlight shines in the windows.  Still, it's a challenge to peer at mysterious food in the gloom of a de-powered galley, let alone cook it.  Oh yeah, and we desalinate our drinking water from the ocean, so no electricity means no water, either.

And so with limited lights, rationed water, and no intra- or internet, music folks wandered around until we found each other.  Joe and Patrick and I had the cello, a guitar, and a banjo, and I knew just where to go.  There's a small dorm on the far side of town, as yet uninhabited this season.  The lounge of the Mammoth Mountain Inn (I have no idea why it's called that) has large windows that look out to the ice shelf, two long couches, and decent acoustics.  It's the perfect place to pass around a bottle of wine, sing some love songs, and speculate about who we should eat first if the power completely stays off for good.

Sweater Song

Shuttle Jake unconsciously posing at emergency apple #1.

You can't actually see the amazing ice fog glitter,

but this picture ended up looking neat.

old film canisters from the NZ Hillary Hut

No, not the Weezer one -- my new favorite thing to sing is a playful and exquisitely longing song that employs a sweater as an improbably sexy metaphor ("I Wish I Was," by the Avett Brothers).  This year I finally brought an aux cable, so I can listen to my own music while I drive.  If there's no one to shuttle, I can repeat a song over and over and over, and in such fashion learn it, all during work hours (shhhh, don't tell).

Every year I give myself a talking-to about how I should really learn guitar so I can accompany myself, and skip over the ingratiating and bowing and scraping that I perform in order to wheedle people into playing music with me.  Luckily my Fuelie friend is obliging me for the time being, but really, I swear, I'll learn to strum and pick...this summer...or next season...sometime.

Unseasonably warm and sunny weather has followed me from Alaska to Antarctica.  Everything's melting, I hiked in a sweater, and sunblock is my constant companion.  The sea ice is quite thin this year, only having formed in late July.  Already large cracks extend from the rocky point just beyond town, and our days of exploring pressure ridges and skiing around the cape are numbered.  The seals seem to be thriving, though, and a slew of doe-eyed pups are adorably writhing around.  

Speaking of writhing on the ice shelf, I started doing push-ups and sit-ups on every drive to the airfield.  No, that's not me suffering a stroke behind my van; I'm just trying to be inconspicuous, in a bright red jacket, with a neon safety belt, in a broad, open, white plain bustling with heavy equipment and airplane mechanics.  I eeked out 20 push-ups in a row once, but the following set, two hours later, I could barely finish my usual 10.  I'll get there soon, though, and my sweater will be waiting when it get's too cold.

Stockholm's cold but I've been told/I was born to endure this kind of weather

abstract lenticular clouds atop Erebus

den + dresser

The window frame in my room is not quite true, and even mild winds whistle mournfully; the drafts stir my bed curtains.  I have what technically passes for a four-poster: the metal corners of the frame reach up a foot or so, and the sheets I tacked to the ceiling enclose my small sleep-cave.  

I elected to work the day shift first this year, which will hopefully grease the wheels for doing lots of music.  But I felt significant pangs as a crowd of good people departed for the night shift this weekend.  We'll always have Saturday night...

A set of drawers contain my minimal and tidy possessions, yet incongruously sprouts an increasingly unwieldy collection of hoarded luxuries and scavenged detritus.  There are notes on Post-Its on notes, a teetering pile of books and old magazines, a gnarled chunk of ginger root, wine glasses and colored pencils and maple syrup and balls of yarn of varied autumnal hues.  The raw materials of my temporary domesticity are close at hand, uncannily like props on a stage in their organic disorder.

Training is nearly complete, and soon I'll drive those regular runs out to the airfield, this time with an aux cord and my own music.  I'll still tune in to the Armed Forces Network radio broadcast of awful Top 40 for entertainment and to keep up with the kids these days, but not until after I've listened to First Aid Kit's "Emmylou" 147 times in a row.

High Five

I know it's not quite the right issue, but it *is* springtime here.

#readeverywhere

@ParisReview

Welcome to Season 5.  Somehow this time it feels I was only gone a month or so.  The familiar scenery, setting, sunlight, smell, the sourness of the yogurt: this place I know well, and even marking its changes solidifies and reaffirms for me its character.

We have a fun, diversely talented Shuttles crew this season, amongst whom I am the least-experienced professional driver.  But my knowledge of town and its arcane customs and jargon, and at times feudal interrelations, make me a sort of tribal elder.  Whippersnappers a decade younger than me, who have driven big rig semis across country, listen as I ride shotgun and describe where to park at the Tower of Power, how best to approach Sausage Point on a windy day, and the specific door at which to drop off NASA Roy at the Golf Ball.

It was a busy/not busy first week -- meeting new people, endless training sessions, hours of chit-chat while we wait for vehicles to revive from the near-death of wintering outside, and a barrage of activities and freshly effervescing enthusiasm.  I've already trained as a guide for the historic huts and ice pressure ridges, sung with jazz folks, consumed several pounds of cheese, and submitted my three-years-procrastinated literary journal fan mail pic.

Up close delivering some important stuff to the C-17.

Back Again!

Taylor's Mistake, NZ

sundae with frendz

Oct. 20

And we're...offfff...I think.  You really never know for sure.  Five days ago, with perfect weather on both ends, we giddily (and rather sleepily) bundled ourselves onto the C-17 and flew to Antarctica.  It's a loud, tedious plane ride featuring a mediocre sack lunch, but everyone's excited to get to the Ice.  Just 80 miles shy of McMurdo, already into our descent, a crew member came over the PA to tell us that the anti-icing fluid they deployed had caused the windshield to crack(!).  Not in a dire fashion -- blizzard winds were not screaming into the cockpit -- but to a degree that required us to turn around and fly the five hours back to New Zealand.  I'm now part of the boomerang club.

Aside from the long plane ride, I've been grateful to have a few extra days to bum around Christchurch, hike the cliff shores around Sumner, and enjoy perfect eggs benedict and Thai food and negronis.  Time spent in the real world with Ice people is invaluable: quotidien experiences like getting coffee and waiting at the bus stop build surprisingly strong ties.  The quality of time and conversation depth during the past few days will morph in the coming months.

Here I am again, leaning back in my jump-seat, cozy in my Carhartts and enormous insulated boots.  Now, after a sunny day to cure the epoxy on the new window, we're sitting on the runway, carry-on bags full of apples and avocados and booze, minds and hearts again fixed on that far, cold destination.

----

Oct. 22

We made it on that second attempt, and I'm happy to report that it is quite cold and appropriately Antarctica-y here.  This year's Shuttles crew seems like a good bunch, and I lucked out and got a great random roommate.  No one could ever fill your shoes, Will -- with midnight coffee, manic crafting, banana stashing, and indescribable character -- but my new roomie is nice and smart and doesn't snore.

Lake Span

Byron? Bryan? I don't remember your name, lake, but you're pretty.

A freighter beyond some old pilings at Whitefish Point.

The Antarctica => Alaska seasonal migration has embedded itself in my inner ear, or magnetic compass, or biological clock—whatever it is that innately compels our peregrinations, be they routine or otherwise.

Alaska was deeply into autumn as Sam and I wrapped up our travels.  Up by Denali even the lower mountains were dusted with snow, and I opted to sleep in the rental car rather than wake up in a frosted tent.  (Actually, it rained pretty hard, and poor Sam was rather damp.)  An evening at the charmingly down-at-heel Chena Hot Springs was pretty nice, though.

And now a couple weeks in Michigan somehow melt by.  I met my brand-spankin'-new-three-day-old niece!  My friend Jen brought me along for a north woods cabin weekend, in a spot incredibly rich in placenames and literary references ("by the shores of gitche gumee" and "rushing Tahquamenaw," on the "Big Two-Hearted River," near Paradise).  We spent a few days exploring Lake Superior beaches, cooking everything with bacon, and gossiping/psychoanalyzing by the wood stove fire. 

Back in TC, I've crossed off almost all the items on my to-do list (exchange lifetime guaranteed socks; try better earplugs; get fancy hiking backpack with hip-belt heat-molded to my waist; procure several pounds of dried cherries to buoy my spirits when the food gets rough at McMurdo).  Long-put-off projects like cleaning up old emails and figuring out how exactly to move music from my aging laptop to my ancient iPod have filled several afternoons.  (This is what I get for hating technology.  If we'd all just stuck with Walkmans I'd be fine.)

Northland

Sam studiously taking notes from her reading while I sip cocoa.

gem-like waters of lower Reed Lake

cuuuuuuute Mint Hut

another impossibly gorgeous glacial lake

After countless times packing and unpacking, evacuating and returning, I remained skeptical that the season was finally ended.  Because even after the final mopping, last breakfast, and my walking tour to bid adieu to favorite trees and flowers, there was just enough time to watch “Point Break” one more time.*  And then a bunch of us rode in a van together for a few hours, and a handful even stayed the night together in Anchorage.  If there’s a better way to ease a transition than Ethiopian food with a dear old friend (love you, Jams!), I don’t want to know it.  Also in the wildly helpful category: a fun hiking/travel buddy, and a decadent late night picnic spread in your cozy cabin.

Mountains and rivers and glaciers and clouds of fog like dragon’s breath have enveloped Sam and me in a chilly autumn embrace.  It sounds like a fairytale—go up Fishhook Road almost to the pass; follow the winding stream past gnarled willows and enormous mossy boulders tossed there as though by giants; try not to slip on the gooey muddy footholds climbing to the ridge; then, if you’ve been deemed worthy, the mists will clear and a squat red hut will materialize on the mountainside.  There you’ll find lakes of the bluest blue, smooth valleys of granite below jagged shale peaks, and, in spite of the crumbling and shifting and rushing waters filtering through the glacier’s terminus, a deep stillness.

And next, Denali.  A visit to my original Alaskan foray.

*Our staff lounge contains VHS copies of almost every Patrick Swayze movie.  “Point Break” played on repeat for the entire week of staff training in May, and was screened regularly throughout the season.