art

Tell Them I’m a Good Kisser

All my life, music has moved me. It has transported me, lifted me in its arms, and taken me where I needed to be. It has been my saving grace, my sanity, and the place I have felt a true sense of freedom.

As a little kid, if I was feeling sad or lonely, I’d just start singing to myself and I’d either guide myself go deeper into the emotion or help myself fly away from it.

When I was maniacally sending in my college applications as a teen, with only minutes to go, it was my Mom who reminded me: “Sing, Julia. Sing.” I sang to myself as I uploaded the last attachments, undoing the tizzy I had wound myself up into.

When I’ve walked down city streets alone at night or traipsed through the woods solo, I’ve sung to myself to bring comfort and calm, and courage.

When I’ve needed to process something but haven’t had the words, I’ve let the song come out instead.

Music comes from the heart. It breaks it and strengthens it again, growing older and wiser and richer each time.

Still, as much as it is a comfort and a joy, music has also challenged me. Performing has taken the thing I feel most passionate about, most connected to myself in and made that private love public. Still, most of my life, aside from solos in choir and playing with my Dad or Brother, my voice was blended into a the harmonies of many. I didn’t often feel the pressure of the spotlight until…

Six summers ago, I sang my first songs with the local band. While I’d been in a band in Sonoma County prior to unintentionally moving to Alaska, we had yet to perform.

Game on.

Alaska music scene — Thanks for the awesome photos, Luke!

As I jumped back into the crowd after my stint on stage, one of our dear friends pulled me aside. “Jesus, woman! You’ve got some pipes.” He then looked at The Chief who was smiling ear to ear and said “Did you know she could do that?!”. It was the first time since high school that I’d performed and I felt like I was walking on air. Transported once again. The Chief, who certainly had heard me singing around our house, knew I could sing. I’d breakfast-time serenaded him from the other room while distractedly singing and cooking but to actually sit down, learn a song and give it my all? He hadn’t heard it. In fact, despite singing being one of the loves of my life, most people I loved hadn’t heard me sing until our wedding two years ago.

Alaskan wedding — Wild in Love Photo by Kate Lamb

And I mean really sing. Not sing in a choir, singing songs I was told to sing. Instead, really sing because I was singing songs that were for me. Songs that spoke to my heart.

After that first night with the band in the bar I was hooked…but doubt crept in.

What if they didn’t want me to come back?
What if they were just being nice?
What if they didn’t like the songs I liked?

It turned out that they did want me back but lest I be too hasty, I didn’t want to overstep. They were a rock band with a punk-ish flair and I was already singing their rock songs with a blues/jazz twist. I didn’t want to push it.

Could I have?
Certainly.
Did they encourage me to?
Mmmmmhhhmmm!
Did they ask me to choose songs I liked?
Yep!
Did I do it?
You get where this is going…

I wasn’t the lead singer. I’d come in for harmonies and a few diddies and head back into the crowd. No responsibility, no say, right?

Kennicott National Park — Looks like a painting behind us, doesn’t it?! Thank you, Alaska.

The very next year, the lead singer didn’t return for a summer, and suddenly…I was the lead singer. The band changes a little every year, depending on the musicians in the town which is something I’ve never seen before and never would have thought of. I absolutely love that! It’s also why I never assumed I’d be the front woman. I mean, even if our Lead Singer/Guitarist did leave, certainly someone else would step in, right?! But suddenly, that someone was me. Finally (finally!) I started suggesting songs. I tried to find songs that rang true for me that I thought the band would hopefully like. It worked! Slowly but surely we’d floated ideas of the Alabama Shakes, Heartless Bastards, White Stripes, etc. and even learned and performed a few of them.

The crowds changed a little and at first, I thought I was doing it wrong. It wasn’t as rowdy, or at least not as often. People requested songs I didn’t know and I felt embarrassed because they wanted punk rock Otis Redding and I was giving them Aretha Otis Redding. But…I was who I was. I am who I am.

Last weekend, six years after my first show with the band, we played our first show of this season. We all picked our favorites from our existing repertoire, a repertoire that held our evolution in its story. Everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Amy Winehouse. We also added a few newbies just for this show and they were and are some of my favorite songs ever.

Midnight in Harlem by Tedeschi Trucks Band
Good Kisser by Lake Street Dive and

I wasn’t sure how the crowd would like them. Would they be too pop? Too girly? Did it matter?

It turns out it didn’t matter (spoiler alert, I know). Halfway through the two-hour show…the dancing began and despite thunderstorms and rainfall, it didn’t stop. From rainbows to a downright downpour, I watched faces new and old dance the night away to the songs we were lucky enough to play for them. Here’s a short clip from our friend and event organizer, Dave Hollis:

Love the flyer, Davey!

We closed the two-hour show + fundraiser with “Good Kisser” (which starts out “If you’re gonna tell them everything, tell them I’m a good kisser…”. Hence the title of this post) and as I began, I heard hoots and hollers from the knowing crowd. Our crowd. ‘Twas not too pop after all. It’s a beautiful thing, that cycle of a song. From the first time I heard it and it struck a chord in me to learning it, introducing it to the band, them learning it, us learning it as a group and making it our own to then playing it and hearing those few first words strike joy in someone else who was also struck the first time they heard the song…that’s beautiful. To hear the joy that recognition brings, that’s something pure I’ll never pass up. You never know when you pick your songs what will resonate, who will show up and how they will feel. You can only play what makes you feel good and hope that translates outwards to your crowd.

Over the years, the people who have made up our crowd have changed. I’ve watched people scrunch their noses, turned off by the music, and I’ve watched people come in off of the street, called in by the music. We can’t serve everyone. We can’t be everything to everyone. If you need a true punk rock evening, our old frontman was your man (and he will be back for a stint this summer!). If you need something more like jazz+pop+soul+rock, I’m your girl. Neither? That’s fine too. The point? The one that took me six years to realize?

Be you.
Your crowd will come.
Not everyone will love you.
That is OK.
You are your own crowd and you are perfect, just as you are.
Besides, there’s no one else like you and…

It’s way more fun to show up when you show up genuinely as yourself.

With love,

from Alaska

The Potato, McCarthy, Alaska — Troopers!

P.S. Thank you to everyone who came out and danced in the rain (or under cover) and supported KCHU! We love you guys! And a huge thank you to my bandmates. I love playing music with y’all.

P.P.S. So…what’s on your playlist these days?

DIY Cabins: Life, Alaska Style

I love the allure of DIY, don’t you? Do It Yourself. Hell yea! I’m going to…probably.

In my life in California, my DIY consisted sometimes of actually DIYing and most often of scrolling through countless projects on Pinterest until I felt like I had actually accomplished something. Similar to scrolling through to select an exercise video and then feeling so accomplished having just looked at others exercising that you head to the kitchen for a snack. What a workout! DIY was something novel to me. Something I would (occasionally) choose to do. I’d research my project of choice, head to the craft or hardware store, and come evening, I’d have something somewhat resembling the project I’d endeavored to complete.

Fast forward to Alaska and DIY has taken on a whole new meaning. I realized the shift immediately from the moment I wanted to camp out at a friend’s house and spent the day pick-axing through rocks to make a level area.

Nothing here is hand-delivered unless it’s delivered by your hands. For this little lady, who was used to small-scale projects being completed in one day, I didn’t quite understand bigger projects or why they took so damn long.

Proximity to supplies
Timing
Weather
Money
Supplies
Time
Resources
Did I say the weather?

All of this and more impact our lives out here far more than I ever could realize immediately. I looked at projects to be done, planned with The Chief and couldn’t understand why we were still in the gathering of materials stage months later. Still, even as I came to understand that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, that things would simply take more time, I didn’t want to click my heels to leave. So, I started with what we had and settled into where I was.

Hiking in Alaska — Deep down the wormhole…

I liked the hard life, I knew that for sure, but damned if it didn’t drive me crazy sometimes. Slow and steady is less my speed. I prefer one and done and move onto the next.

So, when we started our living room project LAST fall…

Building in Alaska — Phase I: Painted + New Flooring

I was impatient for it to be done. But guess what? It finally (almost) is!

Yes, we need to clean up the battery box and yes we need to re-hang our art and yes, we need to build the shelves we’ve been talking about for a year but I’d be a liar if I said I couldn’t see the finish line for the first time ever. It’s there.

The truth is, as I sat back and admired our hard work, I realized that this wasn’t just the end of a 6-month long project, it was the end of a 6-year project. We had started our living room project 6 years ago when I first arrived. We started here, with dueling couches, an OSB (read: similar to plywood) floor covered in a rug permanently covered in dog hair. Here, with single-pane windows that sometimes opened, a cloth ceiling, and more guns than I’d ever seen in my life (but at least now we were off the floor). We started here, with a place we both felt immediately at home in, with a person we both felt we’d found our soul in, with a ready canvas and slowly, the picture began to come to life.

Since then, we’ve made constant upgrades, changes, arrangements, and re-arrangements, trying to finally settle into our space.

Like this Christmas edition:

and this Summer edition:

and this Fall corner:

and this Winter coziness:

From here:

To here:

And you know what? We are finally there. Well, near there, but let’s call it good. The end is truly in sight.

Sure, there’s much more to do the moment you step out of the living room but for the first time ever, two-thirds of our house is complete. Our bedroom feels like a little sanctuary and our living room finally feels complete and it brings me a deep sense of satisfaction. Yes, it took forever. Yes, it meant individual trips over months on end to finally get all of the materials here. Yes, it meant working in the cold, working on the weekends and countless hours checking the fire in the shop to make sure the temp hadn’t dropped and our stain wouldn’t freeze on the boards. Yes, it meant arguments and resolutions and the constant moving of things in and out, back and forth, up and down the Ramp of Doom in the slick Spring days and cold Winter nights.

Yes, it was a long endeavor but despite all of it, looking at the boards, each of which I bought, hauled, cut, stained, and installed with my husband brings me an immense sense of joy.

This morning as I sit in our cozy home, there’s a deep feeling of contentment. Not from DIYing but from DITing. Doing It Together. I didn’t always feel motivated to do the work, sometimes The Chief didn’t either, yet together, we made it happen. I think more than anything, what I wanted most in life (even more than nailing a Pinterest-worthy creation) was a partner to do things with. I certainly didn’t anticipate finding this partnership in the Alaskan wilderness, off-the-grid and far away from everything I’d ever known but I am so glad to have stumbled upon it.

It’s not always easy, but it’s exactly what I needed.

With love,

from Alaska

P.S. What are you DIY/DIT-ing these days? How are your projects slowed or sped up based on your lifestyle?

The Weather Gambler

I’ve never been much of a gambler. Despite going to Las Vegas a handful of times, the most I’ve ever lost was $100 and it was $100 a friend had given me to encourage me to “Get on out there!”. Get on out there I did for about 1 solid hour of Juju gambling time and then…meh. It’s just not me.

Recently, we had the chance to gamble twice. You see, the weather a month ago had been absolutely gorgeous. Bluebird skies. Not a cloud in sight. Warm, sunny days.

So, aiming to finally get “out” before the Fall closed in, we had scheduled a backcountry trip (where you fly in an airplane into even more remote Alaska). We met to match schedules with the flight company, deciding each to take one day off from work, and lo and behold, we found the perfect weekend. It was settled.

Then, The Chief’s boss switched around his work schedule. Suddenly, if we took the trip he would have missed one normal day of work AND one day of overtime instead of just one regular day. Being that his work season is coming to a close, the squirreling of dollars has begun and we couldn’t really swing it. Plus, one of the people who had given us the trip was visiting said weekend and we would have missed getting in some quality time with her.

Best friends — Ain’t she cute? Wine bottle birthday cake.

So, novice gamblers that we are, we risked it: Gamble #1: Rescheduling. We scheduled for the last weekend the flight company was open: last weekend. Labor Day Weekend, which also happened to be our one-year anniversary. The visiting girlfriend who had given us the flight and had worked at the flight company had worried that it might be too cold or that we would get stuck in the backcountry. “Go! Dont’ worry, we will see one another soon! I don’t want you to get stuck or not go!” she cautioned.

Stuck?

Yup.

Mid-Summer, it’s actually pretty fun to fly out to places that have difficult landing strips or are prone to weather delays and experience the maybe we will, maybe we won’t adventure of getting stuck in the backcountry. I mean, who doesn’t want more time in the mountains, right? As the Fall closes in, the chances of weather delays and rough landings increases and…this was the last weekend the flight service was operating. So, if they couldn’t pick us up, we’d have to Winter over in the mountains.

Just kidding! But…it would delay their closing if their ability to pick us up was delayed.

Still, the weather had been beautiful and if it were anything near how the weather had been last year at our wedding, we would be totally fine. So, we scheduled it. Labor Day weekend, goodbye! To the backcountry we go!

Right?

Enter: Gamble #2: Rescheduling…Again

As we cruised through the following weekend, post reschedule, the weekend we would have been in the backcountry originally, the weather showed up in style. It was GORGEOUS. T-shirt weather mixed with the leaves turning made for an epic precursor to Fall. Everyone reveled in the good luck we were having. What weather!

The Monday after that weekend everything changed.

We awoke to Fall. The sky was overcast and cold, and the temperature was in the 20’s. As Leto and I took our morning constitutional, we looked into the mountains.

McCarthy, Alaska — Weeks later, still snow

Snow.

A lot of snow.

Oh.

The gloomy week continued and as the trip grew nearer, we had a gamble to make: we could go into the backcountry and risk getting stuck or we could cancel our trip until next year.

Cancelling Pros:
1. Next year, we could go earlier in the summer with (potentially) warmer weather
2. We could harvest our garden which, given the current weather conditions, was unlikely to last through the weekend and greet us upon our return
3. We wouldn’t risk missing extra work (more than we could really budget for)
4. We essentially live in the backcountry, so even without a plane, we could get out into the wilderness on our own. This, however, is more likely in Winter though, which means temperatures far colder than Fall weather. But…I’d done it before!

Cancelling Cons:
1. Not being in the backcountry
2. Waiting an entire year to get into a plane and go in the backcountry
3. Feeling like we “never do anything”
4. Staying home and not getting that backcountry release one can only feel when phones are off and all is quiet

Come Wednesday of the week we were finally set to depart, the forecast gave us nothing. It was dark and cold and the predictions were about 50/50 cold with sun to colder with snow. After a dinner sit down we decided to call it: The backcountry would have to wait until next year. Having worked on our garden since March, and trying to stay true to our aim to live better off the land, we would have been devastated to come home to a spoiled crop. And, although there’s nothing quite like the backcountry, we did have one trick up our sleeve:

Long Lake

You see, this Spring we did something crazy. We bought 21 acres of raw land, 3 seasons sight unseen.

Long Lake, Alaska — Thanks for leading the way!

What does that mean? The Chief and I trudged about the property for a month in the heart of Winter. Snowshoeing in hip deep snow to create trails to discover the property lines of the different lots and choose which would be ours.

Alaskan couple — The day we found our lots

We ended up with two and come this Spring, we saw them for the first time in Spring. Come this Summer, we saw them for the first time in Summer. Come this past weekend, we finally saw our property in Fall. Finally, all four seasons, sight quite seen.

The property sits across The Road from Long Lake, a place that has always held a special place in my heart since I arrived. It was, in fact, the first place I ever stayed in our area and it had me from my first mosquito fleeing boat ride across it. I never dreamed we’d actually be able to live there but The Chief and I had always hoped, deep down, that someday it might work out and then…it did.

Alaskan Malamute puppy — Leto, hanging off the cliff-edge at the back of the property. Chitina River below

So, no, we didn’t go into the backcountry last weekend. On Wednesday we decided to cancel and guess what?! Come Thursday morning, the sun was shining bright as ever, the birds were singing and though crisp, the day was “warm”. The night and day shift in weather continued into the weekend and trust me, I doubted my gambling abilities, even going so far as to try to ruin the first few hours of our first day off together by drowning in self-doubt. Still, every time I looked up to the mountains, with its steady accumulation of snow, and down to our garden that lasted just until Saturday morning, when we harvested the last bits, I knew we had made the right choice.

To gather some of the backcountry vibe we were so desperately in need of, we turned off our phones for the weekend for the first time in months (hence the lack of photos). We spent the weekend pickling the vegetables from our garden. Carrots and zucchini and cucumbers found their way into jars and basil was hung to dry and set aside with carrot tops for pesto. The tomato plants with their fruit still green, were cut down and brought into the house to ripen on the vine and the last wild Alaskan medicinal herbs that grace our property found their way into tinctures and oils and onto drying racks.

It was a tidying up, a recommitment to our base values.

Then, it was adventure time. First, a hike out to The Toe of the glacier and then, a night at the property.

Toe of the Glacier, Alaska — Leto at The Toe a few weeks before, chasing a duck in the glacial lake

Being on the property felt magical. The Chief cut down the first trees ever, we started working on our trail and we had our first fire. We spent the night under the stars (it’s Fall, y’all and stars are back!), listening to howling coyotes and hooting owls. By dawn, it had started to rain and we threw on the tent fly, scooped up our Leto and cuddled into our family nest, cozy, safe and sound.

The next day, our one year wedding anniversary, we packed up and headed homeward. We spent the day unpacking and tidying, reading and napping. Then, as the night closed in, we 4-wheelered down to our somehow still standing wedding arch and toasted to a wonderful year together.

Wedding arch — The arch. Thank you, again MT

Our first year of marriage. As we had done during our wedding ceremony, we made vows to one another and promises born from the lessons we’d learned in the year past. Then, as we had done after our wedding ceremony, we walked down to the river, found a rock along the way and hollered our wishes as we threw the rocks in to the icy waters below.

As I tossed in my rock, I looked up to the snow-covered mountains and felt that, for once in my life, I’d made the right gamble. The biggest gamble of them all. I’d unknowingly gambled on Alaska and in it, I found the love I had never dared to dream of. Just like the weather, there have been moments to test me, to make me question myself but always I come back to here, back to you. With all of my heart, thank you to Alaska and to The Chief for gambling on me and helping me to see I’m right where I need to be.

With love,

from Alaska

P.S. What has been your favorite gamble?

100

Well, I doggone done it…two posts ago.

I watched for it.

Waited for it.

Planned for it.

And then…

I plumb forgot.

100 posts.

Celebrated at 102.

Beneath the Borealis 09-24-18 100 Cocktails.jpg

Icicle cocktail, anyone?

As someone who is always ready to celebrate a milestone, even those that aren’t my own (Happy anniversary to you! Happy birthday to your dog! It’s Tuesday! Let’s celebrate!) it would be truly out of character to let this one go by (any further) without at least a virtual toast and a little reminiscing.

Shall we?

The first post was born with me cuddled up on the couch in a cabin belonging to a love I barely knew in a season like nothing I’d never experienced. It was born from a place where the best things grow: intuition. Intuition told me I was missing something, something that had been a part of me, something I had lost. And so, I sat down to write, and in the process, I found what I had forgotten.

Beneath the Borealis 09-24-18 100 CindaLou Huskies of Alaska

My intuition incarnate. I’ve never been set as straight by anyone as I was by my Lou.

As we all grew to know one another and this cabin became our home, I also found a home in myself. Writing this blog has brought me back to my basics and forward into who I want to be.

Self-portrait.

I never dreamed that day, sitting on the couch that I sit upon now to celebrate 100 postings, that I would reach this milestone. I never really gave it any thought back then. I only followed what my body asked and that was to write.

Within this 102, I’ve found myself, my person and my home. We’ve met utter despair and undeniable elation together and through this medium, I’ve recanted our stories. It has been a way to move through pain, relish in joy and discover a life anew. As life goes, so this story will read, the beautiful, the beastly, the sometimes buried beneath waiting for the light, telling of a life in the woods.

And so, I thank you, with all the warmth of sweet sunshine on a biting Winter’s day for coming along with me.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for participating. Thank you.

A toast to you.

A toast to 100 (and two).

Cheers!

With love,

from Alaska.

Beneath the Borealis 09-24-18 100 Winter in Alaska

Winter…it’s coming.

P.S. Did you miss the 100th post? Me too! Here it is: Follow me, I’ll take you there

I Am an Artist

I am an artist.

I can’t tell you how many other artists just cringed at reading that.

Not because they deem it false or have questions as to my membership in the club. In fact, not because of anything to do with me at all. It is, in my experience, because they are wrestling with their own membership in this club or remembering the first time they announced their arrival.

This may not be true for every artist. I dare not declare it universal, lest the unicorn artists who knew they were just that from birth come and correct my wrong statement. I will say, after spending a weekend with artists that it seemed a nearly universally hard statement to conjure up for the first time for everyone. Some, even those on panels, were still choking on it.

Yet, I’ve said it.

You see, last weekend I attended the Alaska State Council on the Arts biennial conference in Fairbanks.

Beneath the Borealis I Am an Artist Fairbanks AK.jpg

Rainbow hills. Rainbow leaves.

I first heard about the conference a few months ago when a friend, who’s helped me more in writing this year than I can explain, mentioned that it was coming up. I looked at her and said something along the lines of “Oh, that will be fun!” She looked at me as if to say “Yeah…that’s why I’m telling you about it.”

A few minutes of her explaining it later and I still didn’t get it.

Finally, she put it in terms I could hear:

“Julia, it’s an artist’s conference. You’re an artist. You should sign-up.”

Oh!

Oh?

Oh…

I’m an artist?

Beneath the Borealis I Am an Artist Fairbanks AK hunting.jpg

Artists: Enter Here.

When I first started this blog, it unleashed in me the well-kept secret from myself that I, in fact, do want to be an artist. Yet I wasn’t ready to call myself one. As a youngster, I knew I was an artist, as kids simply know themselves without ego or fear. I was a singer and a writer and I knew it down to the depths of my little lady being that an artist was what I wanted to be.

How?

Because I felt alive.

Alive when I sang.

Alive when I wrote.

Yet, as I grew and grades and prestige and stability became a focus, I let that knowledge go and I covered it up with the “shoulds” of existence which placed more emphasis on succeeding than feeling alive.

And soon, I felt deadened.

Moving here allowed me to step outside of myself. It allowed me to bring with me not only that which was useful from my old life but to re-invite those aspects of myself I had lost. It felt like I was traveling. I was free to be whomever I deemed myself to be. And without thought, I suddenly found myself in a band, singing again. I had invited art back in and it had entered my life with a warmth I hadn’t felt in decades.

That first Winter, writing invited herself in. She opened the door, kicked off the snow and asked not why she’d been sequestered for so long but if I was, in fact, ready to begin.

I was.

I am.

I am an artist.

It may not be easy to say, but once you do, it’s like walking through the closet door into Narnia. The world feels a little more magical. It’s exciting and important and alive.

You don’t have to be a full-time artist to be called an artist. You don’t have to be in a gallery or be published or be the director of a Broadway hit. Art can lie in the simple act of taking the time to study a flower that strikes you, in letting your mind play. It can be as small as decorating a salad you make or as big as a complex canvas painting you’ve spent hours on end creating. It can be the notes you scribbled on a piece of paper towel 30 years ago that become your book 30 years later. It can be a photo that inspired reflection.