family

Mirror Mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

A few weeks ago I saw what I looked like in a full-length mirror. It was the first time I’d seen myself in almost two months.

Up until last year, a stint that long away from a mirror would have been laughable, if not impossible.

Sure, I’ve been without mirrors while traveling but inevitably a mirror would appear. For as long as I can remember my lapses between glimpses weren’t far off or few between.

All my life, I grew up with a plethora of mirrors. Big mirrors, small mirrors, full-length, magnified, you name it. In those mirrors I wasted a lot of time. I don’t want to paint the picture that I was some self-obsessed little lady smiling at my reflection. It was quite the contrary. I’d look into the mirror with scrutiny, wishing for change. I’d condemn myself for flaws and nitpick every inch. I’d change outfits twice just to go to the gym and I’d run through my whole closet for a mundane Monday at school, leaving myself with an overwhelming pile of clothing to put away and an uneven sense of self and a poor representation of what I actually thought was important.

I remember my Grandma Gam gently mentioning to me that I spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom getting ready. Sure, I was 13 (a little preening she could expect and would tolerate) but what was it, she wondered, that was so important to get ready for? Her beauty routine was simple and concise and freed her for other more important endeavors like reading and learning, helping others and exploring nature (to name a few). I on the other hand would miss whole family meals because of my mirror time and, in turn, would lose out on those important moments together. I scolded myself for these misses. Yet I felt trapped. Trapped by expectation and beholden to an image while simultaneously feeling disdainful of both of these things. The constant tug-of-war between caring and not caring exhausted me. My values didn’t line up with my actions and the dissonance made me miserable.

The younger years can be trying for any tyke and thankfully, age took hold and the battle lessened. I started to love myself in whatever outer packaging I came in. I moved into a career that forced me to be body positive and kind to myself since I was supposed to be a model to my students to do the same. I faked it until I made it. Yet still, even with a better outlook I highly doubt that without having mirrors removed from my life by chance, that they ever would have removed by choice.

Upon inadvertently moving to the woods I realized that The Town and the homes within it had a serious lack of mirrors. The sinks in the bathroom at The Bar weren’t even adorned with mirrors and none of the houses I visited had much more than a simple small mirror for the whole house.

My first glimpse at my new perspective.

At first, I was taken aback. At second, I was relieved. I would get dressed in a jiffy and check to make sure I didn’t have anything too offensive to look at (food in the teeth, etc.) and then I was out the door. Sometimes in Town I would see my reflection in a shop window and at times I had to giggle at my reflection – hmmm I didn’t realize those pants looked like that. I look like MC Hammer. Oh well, Hammer Time! Plus, the reflection was never the crisp image a mirror provides, just a vague Van Gogh style painting of me which allowed me to fill in the blanks with what actually matters. Do I look like a kind person today? Am I bringing joy to those I encounter? Am I open and noticing the beauty that surrounds me? Am I allowing the sheer enormity of this place put things in perspective?

What is really important and what do I want to spend time on?

Without being able to see outward I was forced to focus inwards, towards what I felt and how I made others feel. The focus wasn’t on me, but on how I walked through this world and the current I created for others. I felt so relieved, like my blinders had come off and I had finally joined in.

These days, my mirrors consist of one mirror, the same tiny old driver’s side mirror salvaged from a truck that sits in our kitchen on the windowsill above our sink. I’ve lived here for almost two years and we’ve changed so many things in the house together, but that I don’t ever plan to change.

Just like in the Summer, the only full-length glimpses I catch of myself are window reflections which come after sunset as the dark of night plays with the inside light. The image is distorted and fuzzy leaving me to rely on how I feel and how I make others feel instead of how I look.

There’s also a lot of perspective from shadows…like don’t take it too seriously. Since when did my legs get so long and my head get so small?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve shared with you my propensity for an eyelash curler and blush even out here and I’ll take any excuse to dress up and when we are in California it happens even more. Tuesday? Oh, you mean Dress Up Tuesday. But now, it’s because I enjoy it, not because I feel required to do it or because I want to get away from just plain old me. It’s a change of pace, a costume for a day, a character but not a mask I’m afraid will come off and reveal the me underneath.

The other day we went to a dinner party at a friend’s house and on the way over, I realized that I hadn’t looked in our little mirror even once. In the (now becoming more distant) past, I would have spent an hour curling my hair or donning makeup, all in front of the mirror. That sheer break from tradition made me smile as we snowmachined across the river and through the woods to open arms and not a care as to how we looked, just that we were there.

Thank goodness for shifts in perspective and for places that force us into that shift. Thank you for chances to be completely stripped of all you’ve thought you needed to shield yourself in, in order to discover the soft underbelly that lies beneath.

And thank you for Grandmas who give us little reminders of who we really are, and what really matters, even if it takes almost two decades to hear her.

Roger that, Grandma. Loud and clear.

Right here, cake is important little one. Your hair looks fine.

Back to Basics (and Buckets)

One week ago I was returning home from a walk with Lou when I noticed The Chief underneath the house.

Peekaboo?

As I approached him I could tell that this trip below the deck, in particular, was an ominous one at best. I slid down the little hill like a penguin on my bum to meet him and noticed our tea kettle sitting next to him on the frozen ground. Steam surrounded him. In his hand he was holding a pipe.

A very important pipe.

The pipe that insured that the water inside the house would go outside the house.

You see, until a week ago, we had indoor plumbing.

Well, sort of.

We lived in an only Slightly Dry cabin.

No, I’m not talking about a Slightly Dry Cabin like a meant-to-be-dry-but-there-are-ways-around-it dry county or a Dry Cabin with a slightly leaky roof or even a Dry Cabin with a damp draft dismally descending upon us.

Nope.

Slightly Dry.

Until last week.

Now, we are edging towards a Dry Cabin. Not as dry as some. Not as dry as the desert perhaps, but dryer than before, like we started. Back to basics. Back to buckets.

O.K. what in the world am I talking about? Dry, Slightly Dry? It sounds like a deodorant commercial or a martini order.

Let’s define our terms, shall we? Mind you, these definitions are my own (move over OED), and just like how every house out here is different, every person might have their own idea of what dry means. But for our house and as I see it, my definition of a Dry Cabin goes like so:

No indoor running water. No toilet, no shower, no faucet. No, no, no.

O.K. that’s direct but just too basic. Let’s dig in deeper.

Dry cabins come in all different variations and there is definitely a range of “Dry” but the overarching theme and the starting point is a lack of indoor plumbing. Because we choose to reside in the boonies, we don’t simply call up the city and turn on the waterworks. There is no city to call, no water to be tapped into. That goes for everyone out here.

Our cabin has no indoor to outdoor plumbing (now) to speak of which means that every drop of water that we use or consume we have to haul not only into the house but out of the house, in some fashion or another.

Every drop.

When I lived in California, the state was in a drought. We conserved water. We collected rainwater to flush the toilet and we turned the faucet off in between rinsing dishes. We were conscious but despite this consciousness towards using less I was completely unconscious of how much water I still used.

Now, I know. I can account for every bit of water I use as I can actually see the levels dropping on the water buckets we haul into our house. From brushing my teeth to putting a kettle on, never do I use water without first having to retrieve it, either from its source (our well) or from a reservoir in our house. It’s a strange thing to realize that my whole life, I’ve had water on demand and now, it demands that I come to collect it.

And so, we haul our water into our Slightly Dry cabin that has become a little dryer as of late.

So what is the range? A completely Dry Cabin has absolutely no running water. Water is hauled from a local spring or a well outside (which we are lucky enough to have on our property, saving us hours of hauling time) and stored in buckets inside (outside they would turn to popsicles, but not the delicious kind).

Completely dry cabins may not even have a sink but use wash basins instead in which dishes are done and hands are washed over. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone to a friend’s house that has no running water and we’ve shared the duty of watering one another meaning: My hands are soapy. Would you mind pouring water from that pitcher over them so I can enjoy the luxury of rinsing both hands at once? When solo there’s also the balancing act of tipping your water jug over a basin while holding it in place with your shoulder in order to free your hands to wash both at once.

To build upon this ingenuity and make things a little easier, people come up with adaptations. The foot pump is one of my favorite. It’s a little ball on the ground (like a doctor’s squeeze ball used to inflate the arm band to take your pulse) which you step on to pump a spurt of water out of the faucet. It may sound time-consuming and it is, but it’s pure luxury when you’re used to nothing at all. The next option is a faucet and sink with a pump. The pump gets turned on when the faucet is turned on and sends water from a nearby reservoir (say, under the sink, ours is an 8 gallon Igloo cooler) up and out the faucet head. The water then goes right back down the drain into an attached pipe which drains into what is aptly named The Slop Bucket (paints a pretty picture, huh?) which is also nearby (ours is sidled up next to the cooler under the sink).

Back in the day when I first moved in.

The Slop Bucket has to be emptied quite often in order to insure that all your lovely goodness that goes down the drain doesn’t overflow onto your floor. Mmmm toothpaste and dishwater and everything else you put down the drain surprise all over the floor? Yum. This can be tough to remember when you wake up first thing in the morning to brush your teeth. Still groggy and half asleep you slowly come to and hear the pitch of the draining water change (living out here is a lot of listening I’ve learned) and suddenly you come to and realize you’re about to have an overflow. Yippee! Oh, and even if you can congratulate yourself for not overflowing it (this morning) you still have to be careful not to overfill it because, well, you’re still going to have to carry it outside and without a lid, that can be quite the feat.

But not at our house. Nope. The days of The Slop Bucket were over because…(cue the celebratory music. “Eye of the Tiger”, anyone?)

We had a French Drain.

Adding “French” to anything really makes it sound fancy, doesn’t it? And it was.

French toast. (So much better than regular toast)

French fry. (How did I fried potato suddenly sound like its wearing a tuxedo?)

French drain. (How is it even still a drain? It sounds too fancy for the likes of that.)

So what is a French Drain? Well, our version consisted of a 55 gallon drum with the bottom cut off placed into a deep hole in the ground (no small feat. Digging in Alaska is a challenge at best), insulated, covered and connected to the house via piping that attached to the sink inside through a hole in the floor that was then sealed with lots of spray foam to keep the cold out. The water from the sink would then ideally drain into the drum and slowly seep into the ground.

The Fall before The Chief left to meet me in California he had one goal in mind: no more Slop Buckets and so the French Drain idea went into action.

Personally, I didn’t mind the Slop Bucket all that much. Sure, it was a pain. Sure, the Ramp of Doom made it a bit tricky. But hey, I was in the woods now. I could handle it. Right?

In truth, I probably didn’t realize how often the Bucket went out because in my new love haze I was slow to see all the work that surrounded me. I thought I saw it but in reality, The Chief probably chivalrously swept a lot of it away before I noticed. And so, the first time I hauled water up the Ramp of Doom in the Winter I thanked my lucky stars (and The Chief) for making his Drain goal come true. A slop bucket in the middle of winter on the snowy, slippery slope of our Ramp would have been no fun at all and given my propensity for falling down it, wearing the slop would have made it less than no fun at all (anti-fun?). And so we spent the Winter doing dishes and brushing our teeth without having to constantly check The Bucket’s level. The Drain chugged away without incident and we sat in our slightly less dry cabin looking back fondly on (yet with no intent of returning to) the time so long ago when we had to haul The Slop.

That was last Winter. It was “warm”. The coldest temperature we saw was 22 below zero, which to me seemed pretty brrr-brrr cold but alas, I was mistaken.

I was pretty sure this was pretty cold but sunny at 22 below doesn’t hold a candle to grey at 35 below.

Enter: this year.

Just a smidge colder.

In the first stint of 35 below this Winter we realized quickly that we would have to baby The Drain a bit more. We came about this realization after awakening to a list of chores that were quickly put on the back-burner when the drain stopped draining. We listened. No movement. This is bad.

We spent the first half of a day under the house, disconnecting the pipes, bringing them in to defrost, cutting away a portion outside that would not defrost, sending boiling water down the drain via our tea kettle, reconnecting the pipes (which thankfully The Chief had made long enough to still be able to trim in this situation without losing the pipe completely) and finally, getting back to our planned chores.

Phew! That was close.

From then on, we babied the Drain. Every morning, before anything else, we boiled hot water to pour down the drain to clear any buildup from the night (we later realized that the sink was leaking, ever so slightly throughout the night, causing potential blockages so we had to unhook the connections for the pump every night and put a bowl under the faucet in case it still leaked from built up pressure). We constantly had an ear to the drain, listening for the specific sound that meant water was flowing. We watched it like new parents but on it continued.

Until that day, one week ago when I came home.

Since we had once before remedied the situation I didn’t panic upon seeing The Chief under the house. That was, until I saw the pipe on the ground and the exasperated look on his face. The blockage wasn’t in the pipe.

Where the pipe came out of the house.

It was below.

The pipe down into the earth and drum below. All ice.

To this day we still don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe the drum wasn’t far enough below the frost line and everything inside the barrel froze during one of the extended cold spells. Maybe we hadn’t been as meticulous as we thought.

Who knows?

All I know is that we are back to basics and back to buckets.

I guess the Spring will tell us all we need to know about what happened now. Until then, I’ll be working on navigating the stairs with a swishing, sloshing bucket of Slop without falling.

The latest shot of the Ramp of Doom…getting doomier with every drop of rain.

And you know what? I’ve kind of enjoyed it. Well, now that I’ve gotten back in the game. It didn’t affect me at first since The Chief took over most of the hauling since my neck was still delicate. But since I’ve embarked upon the Slop duty, I’ve been kind of glad to get back to it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a bucket that actually had a lid so it didn’t threaten to paint me sloppy every time I transported it outside but we didn’t have one (the two five gallon buckets with lids are for hauling drinking water and we were not giving one of those up). And I’d love to not have to bring it outside twice a day or more on Dish Days. And I’d love it if the color of the Slop was a glittery gold instead of…ewww. And I don’t love it in the moment. But overall, I’m O.K. with it.

The French Drain was a fancy endeavor and one that made me feel very lucky. Yet going back to basics has put me back in touch again with what I’m using and where it’s going. And still, all around me, I see dryer cabins than our Slightly Dryer Now Slightly Dry Cabin. We have running water, an indoor shower (non-permanent and we bathe into a tote, no plumbing there) and an outhouse (two actually, here is the old outhouse, turned library. Seriously).

Our needs are met as long as we meet the demands of our needs. Sure, there are the days when we get home from a big adventure or a dinner at a friend’s house and realize: shoot, we didn’t pump water before we went and well, it kind of stinks because…

When that happens it’s usually the perfect storm. It’s usually 30 below and the well pump won’t start and we have to warm the generator for an hour to get it going when all we really want to do is sit down and eventually after the generator warms and the pump starts and after 5 trips inside each to fill all the reservoirs (shower, under the sink, the pot on the stove and finally the buckets) and a couple spills and a couple close calls on the Ramp…we are done.

And it could have been a lot harder.

Nowadays, when I go to Town, I have to remind myself to turn on the hot water at the sink because I’m so used to always having cold water come out. I have to remember to use the dishwasher because I’m so used to waiting for the water on the stove to heat up so I can do dishes. I have to stop and appreciate the beauty of a shower uninterrupted by scalding hot and freezing cold flashes of a sputtering water heater. And now, when I am home, I stop to appreciate what we had, what we will likely have again and what we still have.

Thank you Alaska for constantly keeping things in perspective, whether we like it or not.

Cheers to the good life, however that looks to you.

With love,

from Alaska.

A Little (Mozzarella) Cheesy, But A Lotta True

You know when a friend is coming home from a long stint away and you go over to their house to make sure it’s warm for them before they return?

Nope, me neither. Not before now, at least.

Before moving to the snowy cold of The North I’d certainly helped with the houses of friends but that normally meant giving it a good scrub down, putting a few extras in the fridge and bringing in the mail. And that was if I was house sitting for them. I’d always leave a note and if I had time I’d put some flowers from their garden into a vase. It made me feel good to welcome someone home to a cozy house with a few extra creature comforts to come back to but in sunny California, heat was typically the last perk on my mind.

But not here. Here, flowers would be the magic trick to trump all magic tricks (one time a bouquet of a dozen pink roses flew in on the mail plane and I swear, every person there just stopped, jaws open, staring at the 12 little miracles. Thankfully, someone snapped us all out of it in time to get the roses into a warm car before they starting to freeze). In California, flowers were the icing on the unexpected cake. But here, I didn’t even know the recipe. How does one welcome a friend home in the middle of Winter in the middle of nowhere Alaska?

If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, chances are you’ve encountered the Walk-In, a large refrigerator big enough to house you and a gaggle of friends for a cocktail party. In the middle of service, especially during a crazed rush, it was the perfect place to cool down for a minute, gather some thoughts (and some celery or whatnot for the chefs) and head back into the mayhem feeling a bit more refreshed. Too long and it would get chilly. A few minutes was plenty.

If you’ve ever lived in Alaska, chances are you know exactly the feeling I’m talking about, even if you’ve never worked in a restaurant because I’d bet that you have walked into a frozen house at some point. You know the cold that doesn’t seem that bad at first and then…it starts biting into you, nibble by nibble until your fingers feel hot because they are instead so cold? A frozen house is like a Walk In but of the freezer variety instead of a refrigerator.

You see, when we leave our houses (those of us who leave, that is) the houses, like the whole rest of the landscape around them, freeze.

Completely.

They become little iceboxes of a life preserved, like a house coated in amber but instead, everything is ice. Upon returning from your travels or visits, this little frozen life is awaiting you and it takes hours and hours to defrost. Hours during which you wait in full-winter gear from Parka to 50 below boots and busy yourself moving things inside from your vehicle outside in an attempt to stay warm.

That is, unless you have a good friend and good timing and oh buddy, are you glad when you have both.

We were lucky enough to have both on our way in this year and our chilly selves (from our non-functioning car heater) were beyond grateful to walk into a house that was warmer than the great frosty outdoors.

And so, when the call comes, you return the favor. It may not be returned directly to those who first helped you but it is returned to the great cycle of favors that revolves and evolves around here. A little cosmic karma, if you will.

Well, that call came twofold and right, as fate would have it, in the middle of weeks of 30 to 35 below zero temperatures.

I hadn’t even made it past our driveway and already, everything went white.

My girlfriend who had been out-of-town for work (much to my chagrin) called the whole week prior, and together we watched as her departure date approached and the temps dropped and dropped and dropped. In the middle of the cold spell we’d had a “warm” snap and she’d just missed the window. In an effort to get her home as soon as possible (ex-squeeze me but I live in the woods where boys abound and women are hard to find. I need all the ladies I can get) I told her that no matter the temps, I’d be there to heat her house if it meant she’d come home sooner.

My offer helped soften the blow of driving in 30 below temps and the day finally arrived when she was (thankfully) headed home. The Chief and I had planned ahead and brought the generator inside the night before. We awoke to the thermometer reading 33 below zero and so we immediately headed outside to warm the snowmachine by powering a heater with the generator. It would need an hour minimum (if we were being nice to it) to warm before we could leave.

Two hours later, last stops stopped and all loose ends tidied up, my girlfriend gave us the green light. She was headed our way and with a four plus hour drive ahead of her it was time for us to drive her way and warm the house. Thankfully, she lived in a valley on the other side of The River and her temperatures often read warmer than ours. Maybe we’d even hit the 20 belows.

Just as we were starting to suit up to depart, my phone rang. We’d been expecting another friend to be coming into the area soon but hadn’t heard from him about his exact dates. People had been driving through his property to break trail (another thing I never even fathomed before living here: duh, of course. When you arrive home after being absent for months, no one has been on your property. There isn’t a trail in sight. Every time you want to walk or drive somewhere you end up hip-deep in snow. So when someone offers to buzz by your place and put in a few trails so you can wade in more freely, you say “yes, thank you”) for a few weeks so we knew he was close but we still didn’t know when he’d arrive.

Well, as circumstance would have it, he was calling from about 250 miles away. He was heading home.

Tomorrow.

Hmm…my little wheels got to turning. Today would be a full-day of heating, which was great. It felt important and honest and good. Two days of heating houses on the other side of the river? Still important and honest and good, but not as good, right? Let’s multi-task this house heating. And so, without thinking I blurted: “Wanna come in tonight?”

Being the badass that he is, he took little more than a look at his old plan and said: “Yes. Of course. I mean we’ve driven this far, what’s a bit of a haul for the last leg?”

Perfect.

And so, with that, The Chief and Julia’s Heating Service was started. Business was booming.

Just kidding.

Both of our friends’ excitement and gratitude had me fired up. It feels so good to do something for someone else and any time you can make life a little easier for your fellow woods dweller out here, you do it.

And so, we were on our way.

We finished suiting up as we talked out our game plan.

Her house first, then his house, then back and forth for the rest of the day until they arrived. Pack a lot of food for a potentially really long day (even if they were leaving, things happen and fingers crossed everything went smoothly but with one of their cars already acting squirrely, anything could happen). Layers upon layers upon layers and extra clothes for a ski.

Yea, we planned on a ski. Pretty cute, huh?

My skis, your skis and a groomer for making trails. We were outfitted, finally.

We got to the first house and the thermometer inside was so cold that all it said was LO. In computer talk I’m pretty sure that means “Geeeeez! What, are you trying to kill me??”

At least it was only -23 outside though! We set to making a fire. Almost. There was wood a plenty and burnables nearby but since my girlfriend had left at the start of the cold-snap she hadn’t been able to clean out the stove before leaving (it had been too cold to let a fire die, even for a few hours and embers take forever to cool). The stove had ash to be removed first (The Chief is a meticulous fire maker, me on the other hand? I’m more of a cowgirl, fly by the seat of your pants type approach) and so we set to find a receptacle. 20 minutes later, cleaned and ready, The Chief had the stove blazing. We dusted ourselves off and…we were off!

At the next house, we broke trail in from the back entrance, paralleling the air field along the way. We arrived again to a ready bin full of wood and burnables (it’s always smart to leave a good set-up if someone is coming to build a fire. You wouldn’t want them to mistakenly burn say, your tax returns. These two were seasoned pros) and The Chief set to work. Since this friend had left in the Fall, the stove was all ready to go and pretty soon the tanker of a stove was chugging along.

It’s a funny thing going into someone’s house in the dead of Winter, especially when it hasn’t been opened back up since the season before. It’s just been sitting and freezing. Everything has a sheen of ice crystals and immediately, you’re scanning for accidents: was there water in any glass that perhaps exploded? Is everything which can’t heat quickly (think kerosene lamp) far enough away from the fire so it won’t break from the temperature shift? And then you start admiring their shut-down techniques. Boards on the windows or coverings over the bed or how their woodpile is organized. One can’t help but pick up tips along the way.

With both houses chugging along, the most important part now was to keep them going. Oh and to not burn their houses down. Yes, this seems like an obvious one and an easy one but out here fire is both something we absolutely need and something we undoubtedly must have respect for. A stove that gets too hot can set fire to itself and with that, the cabin. Plus, every stove is different. Sure, the overarching idea of “shutting it down” (dampening the fire once it’s gotten going to make it burn hot and steady) is the same but every stove has its own little tricks and quirks and when you’re trying to get from frozen to comfortable in hours, you don’t have the luxury of courting time with each stove.

Heat needs to happen now and so you make sure to watch the stove for as long as possible before heading off to the next house.

And so we did, all day long. Back and forth and forth and back we went. Vigilant to lock all the hatches and triple check the stove doors. A few hours in, both stoves cranking away and the temperatures of the houses slowly thawing, we thought about water. Water is essential to every life and out here, it’s especially hard to come by. Both of the friends get water from the same nearby creek and so once we found their water buckets, we headed down to the creek to fill them.

Fill ‘er up, buttercup.

Water in your house here is like flowers in your house in the lower 48, except functional. Having water to get you through the night and the following day, to make your long list of chores just a little bit shorter is huge and since none of us have running water, I could appreciate how much this little act would ease their transitions home.

All buckled up and ready to go

Finally, a few trips more and the first bird to return to the coop called. We met my girlfriend at the airstrip with her sled and after shrieky, bouncy, elated “Hellos”, we started unloading her truck. Three sled loads later, each time with us packed like three little ducks riding in a row on the snowmachine, and her truck was unloaded. One last trip to park the truck (since no vehicle can make it down her driveway with any hope of making it back up again) and back to her house and she had finally “arrived” an hour after she had first pulled up. Home again.

She was over the moon to walk into a warm house that even had, wait for it, water! 5 gallons of My Day Just Got Easier. We celebrated and caught up while The Chief made one last trip to our other friend’s house. They had called to say they were at the last stretch of The Road, they’d be home in an hour. 30 minutes later, The Chief returned we all three celebrated. What a day! We’d been back and forth so many times it would make my head spin to recount it, wearing our heaviest gear to stave off the cold of the day’s 20 to 30 plus below weather. We’d successfully heated and watered two houses (and I had successfully realigned my back after falling straight onto my knee with a huge armload of wood. Oh joy. I swear I heard every vertebrae snap, crackle and pop. Owwwwwww) and our friends were home. So despite any bumps and bruises the reunion trumped all.

Every time someone comes home, our little family here is shifted and changed. A new infusion, new life to our day-to-day and it changes everyone, even if just a little bit.

An hour later, I got a text from our other friend saying that they’d stopped on The Road to visit with one of our friends farther out. It’s a funny thing, the coming and going along the 60 miles of road. There rarely is a time when we haven’t stopped, at least for a bit, to see a good friend we don’t normally see. When it takes 30 minutes just to go 3 miles across the river for a visit, it’s even more unlikely to travel 20 miles for one and so, on the way in or out when you can, you stop to see those you won’t see until the rivers break and the fireweed returns and we all convene back in Town. With that being said, we knew he would no longer be home within the hour and so The Chief headed out again to stoke the fire one last time.

He returned to my girlfriend’s house where we had already broken into her stash. This is the best conundrum of every return: what to eat first? It’s always random and never what you’d think and this time was no different: mozzarella cheese.

When you live in the middle of nowhere and new infusions of food are far and few between, it’s funny the things that sound mouth-wateringly delightful and that night, we all agreed on the cheese. Before long, half the block was gone (along with a solid dent in some tortilla chips and warming whiskey) and it was clear that our other friends would be out past our bedtime. After spending a day almost completely outside (since their houses didn’t start to warm up until early evening and even at that, they were still only 50 degrees, though still a complete respite from the biting cold outside) our bodies were ready to rest.

A little cloud of exhale while eating a snack

And so, we headed home and what did we return to?

Well, a warm house.

The house wasn’t warm because we had built a fire that would outlast the day. Even the most amazing fire wouldn’t have been able to hold tight through 8 hours of cold knocking on the door. No, we returned to a warm house because while we were away, our neighbors had been coming by every few hours to throw a log on (or two, and to pet or let in or out our Miss Cinda Lou).

The karma loop continues.

It wasn’t just us that day that heated those houses. It was all of us. Our neighbors and us and every neighbor before them that checked on their house while they were away for the day. When life breaks down to food, shelter and warmth it becoming obvious what is important. Sure, our friends could have returned to cold houses, people have done it forever and still do it all the time. Or we could have spent the day away and returned to a 30 degree house. It’s happened, it happens. But none of us did. We all kept warm because of one another and not to be too (mozzarella) cheesy, but that’s the kind of thing that is the answer to the question I so often get: “Why in the world would you want to live all the way out there?”

Why? Because in a place where you have to be able to rely upon yourself, it’s that much better when you get a little help from your friends.

Cheers to flowers and fires for friends. Sure, we can all do it on our own but what’s the point? Be a friend in need of a warm house or a warm hug, this is what we are here for.

With love,

From Alaska.

The Golden State

Welcome to the Land O’ Plenty: California.

It’s the land I grew up in, the place I’d called home on and off for almost 30 years and now, it’s a place I come to visit.

It’s strange and beautiful how that happens.

We’ve been lucky enough to land at an amazing house in Sonoma County (in the next town over from where I grew up) to housesit while some friends are honeymooning.

Running hot water? Electicity on demand? Land for our pup to roam? Super score.

It’s been the ideal situation and we are over the moon to finally be settled in after weeks of traveling and living out of suitcases with our furry child in tow (constantly keeping an eye on her and chasing after her as she unknowingly runs up to cars and towards heavy traffic, country dog that she is). The constant shuffling and remembering and forgetting of things and their places has come to an end. It feels good to just slow down, especially knowing that just a short month and a half from now we will be completely shifting gears as we make the journey back up and into Winter.

That being said, I will be taking a few weeks to connect with family and friends and this first place I ever knew as home; to really sink in during the time we are here and to truly be present.

I so appreciate you reading this blog and learning along with me in this journey and I look forward to reconnecting with you in a few weeks.

Make sure to subscribe to the blog (do that in the near top right hand of the webpage) so you know when things over here at Beneath the Borealis restart (in late November or Early December, pending our departure date).

Cheers to California. To kombucha on draft, yerba mate on on tap, essential oils as perfume and “hella” as a word. Cheers to experiencing both Summer and Fall weather all over again and to walking outside to pick ingredients for every meal. And cheers to soon heading back to a snowy landscape filled with trials and tribulations and a silence I can barely recall.

And cheers to you. Thank you for coming along.

I’ll see you soon.

Two Alaskan pups out for a sunset strut.

Leaving: Part II

It was Leaving Day.

The truck was packed, the house was checked once, twice and three times by this lady (and The Chief). We had gas in the truck, she was running again, our bags were packed and…

our dog was nowhere to be found.

We called for her and called for her.

Nothing.

At times, especially when she is grumpy, it can take a few minutes for her to show up. But this? This was different. The truck was running and time was running away with it. We were on a mission to make it to the DMV before it closed at 4pm and every minute more pushed us farther away from that possibility.

Country DMV vs. City DMV? You choose but for us a one room, one person run DMV in the middle of nowhere is highly preferable to a multi-room, multi-station, many grumpy person situation in Anchorage. We wanted desperately to make it in time.

Cinda, on the other hand, free to operate without license or registration, was not on the same agenda and was proving to us just how serious we were when we had stated: “we won’t leave without you”.

And we wouldn’t. Sure, she’d stayed behind in Alaska for short jaunts while in the care of her Uncle before but today, this trip, this time, that was not the plan.

Finally, after many hoots and hollers and phone calls to her Uncles we heard another neighbor yell:

“She’s over here!”

We took the path between houses and headed in our neighbor’s direction. Her Uncle yelled too:

“Just saw her run by!”

The little stinker was going for it.

Just as I met her Uncle on the path he said what I thought was a joke:

“Little lady’s probably rolling in moose or something.”

Ha! Yea, that would be just like her.

Just then, she came racing around the corner all Who, Me? looks in her eyes. She gave a me a quick “hello” and then started in the direction home. We yelled “thank you” to the neighbor and her Uncle walked back with us (her brother in tow) to our house to say “goodbye” for the next few months.

Cinda trotted ahead, leading the pack.

We said our goodbyes and finally loaded up. I jumped in and The Chief loaded Miss Lou onto the bench seat with me where she swiftly commandeered nearly the entirety of the seating. The Chief and I finagled some room and off we went.

Finally!

Last looks at snowy mountaintops

Oh.

My.

Gosh.

What is that smell?

I looked down and my sweet little daughter of a dog had a sheen to her like I’d never quite seen. She looked up at me, proud and smiling as I put it all together.

Her Uncle’s comment? Not much of a joke.

It was the end of moose season and dogs had been finding little bits and pieces throughout the week to steal and bury and rub against.

But, this was more than that. My little angel seemed to have found the gut stash.

I relayed her stench to The Chief who was far enough away and out his window not to receive the bounty of her find.

“Oh yeah, I bet she found some guts to roll in.”

Ah, the woods. The sweet smell of Winter approaching and…guts all over my dog and now all my lap (since, in her conquest of space/her rare moments of slightly snuggling, she had her upper half and offending head in my lap).

I almost threw up.

Typically, I’m pretty good with disgusting smells (a trait that’s come in handy out in the woods) but this was a whole mess of gross.

“Well, hey, she’s gotta put on her perfume. We are going to Town.”

Suddenly, my disgust went away as I burst out laughing. I looked down at our proud pup and she looked at both of us as if to say “Yeah, right? I smell damn good.”

The giggles this gave me were such a relief. Sure, we still had a journey to go but now, we were out of the house, out of the snares of leaving. We had left and the giggles had opened the gate to a new path. Sure, the stress of wondering what it was we had forgotten to do still lingered (and still does) but something shifted.

We were on our way.

40 minutes later (and two hello/goodbyes with friends on The Road) and we arrived at our friends’ house where our plants would live. And then, after saying our goodbyes and hellos, we were off (again).

We had just enough time to make it to the DMV and make it we did to receive permanent registration (no smog!) for our vehicle. The day was looking up. All we had ahead of us was trash drop-off and making it to our hotel.

A few hours later, we made it to the trash drop. I backed in and jumped into the bed, handing The Chief the yuck, one bag at a time. Thankfully, we had the foresight to pack the truck accordingly (recycling first, trash second) so that the trash would be accessible and the truck wouldn’t need to be repacked.

Another thing checked off the list. The load was getting lighter along with our moods and the stench of Cinda was becoming slightly less (especially since I was driving and she was propped up on The Chief).

Until, the turns kicked in.

The road was getting windy and Miss Lou shifted positions. She turned around to face me. The stench thickened. She alternated between putting her chin on the Overdrive shifter or in my lap. I said a brief goodbye to my pants until I could wash them. I reeked. We reeked. But I was getting used to it. Occasionally, strong wafts would overcome me but it was less and less puke inducing.

Until, she puked.

The windy roads must have been getting to her because she looked up at me and then looked down at the floor and upchucked all over her fuzzy white paws. The smell was offensive, to say the least and for the first time that smelly day, I thought I might actually follow suit all over myself (I’m not a puker but my stomach started doing gymnastics).

I pulled over as swiftly as possible and we started the clean-up process while trying not to create more of a mess ourselves.

The rest of the four-hour drive was a constant alternation of puke smell, gut smell and giggles. Cinda looked only slightly less impressed with herself, perhaps rethinking moose guts as a treat before a long bumpy ride but certainly not as a perfume and The Chief and I thought up new jokes about Cinda and her new Town attitude.

We stopped at the last little look of nature for a walk before descending into the hustle and bustle just before sunset.

An hour later and finally, we had made it.

Anchorage, the Big City.

We settled in with a pizza (one of the first things people mention when they get excited for Town) and our books and eventually settled into sleep.

The next day was the day of errands.

We started early with a check-up for The Chief to see how his sinus surgery was holding up (very well) and then headed for recycling. The recycling in Alaska is like nothing I’ve ever seen (and I’m from California). My hours of separating were only partially triumphant. We arrived and realized that I hadn’t separated plastics. We left those for last and I held fast in the bed of the truck handing The Chief the otherwise organized bags of bottles and cans and aluminum. A girlfriend (also in Town) came to meet us to say “goodbye” and also marveled at the extreme organization of the place. Paper, cardboard, plastics 1s, 2s, 5s etc. and on and on and on. Finally, we found the Holy Grail of recycle town: a 1s and 2s bin! Our plastics were almost all 1s and 2s and so the process gained speed once again.

Another thing off the list!

Finally it was off to Cinda’s vet appointment to get her O.K. to fly. An hour and a few hundred dollars later and we were certified and ready. The day was coming to a close and so we met up with a neighbor in Town and headed to the movies (another major Town excitement).

The next day was a last-minute whirlwind of repacking the now empty (minus the barrels) truck, eating pancakes (oh, how’d that get in there) and…laundry. The Chief actually started the process while I went off for an appointment of my own (eyebrows, oh my!) and a few hours later, after folding and sorting that which we wanted to bring versus that which would stay the next two months in the truck waiting for us, and we were done. We made a few last minute purchases (like a new crate for the Lou and copies of the truck keys since having one was just asking for a lock-out) and then, the wait.

Oh, and the most bedazzled coffee cup I’ve ever seen.

We were in the homestretch. Our flight was at midnight and we had a few hours left to let the pup run free before putting her on the plane. We headed to another friend’s house where another neighbor met us (we were all flying together) and it was a woods reunion filled with dinner and a family walk to the park. The perfect send-off. And then, just when on any other night we would have said our goodbyes and headed home, we said our goodbyes and instead started a whole new day.

Off to the airport.

We all crammed into the truck (even more of a squeeze with three people and a dog) and made our way to the car drop-off.

From there it was on. We pulled up and hurriedly unloaded two months of goods and gear for three people and a pup, rushed onto the shuttle and headed to the airport. We were in good time but the anxiety of travel started to set in. Cinda’s eyes widened as we stepped into the hustle and bustle of the airport.

30 minutes of checking her in and $110 (2 bottles of water to tape to her kennel and passage on the plane) later and we were forcing our Lou into the kennel. It is never a good feeling, shoving her in there while she splays out in every way possible to avoid it. Major puppy eyes looked out at us as we said our “see you soons”. This time we were leaving without her, but (we hoped) she would be following behind.

Finally, post-security and gate finding, we were all loaded up. Three kids from the woods and a ticket to show that Cinda had made it on too (which we could only hope was true).

Ah, the red-eye.

Hours later, after maybe 30 minutes collectively of quality sleep, we landed in L.A.

L.A.? Doesn’t make much sense to me either, but the only reasonable flights we could find to our part of Northern California went first down to L.A. and then back North to STS. An hour later, at 6am, after almost missing our flight, we walked the outside stairs into the plane. After a few stressful minutes we received Cinda’s proof of being on the plane and we were off.

No sleep and a few hours later and we were there. The Chief went to meet the friend picking us all up and our neighbor and I waited for luggage and Lou.

I thought she was going to lose her mind, yelping and hollering.

Thankfully, my bags had come off prior to her and thankfully I had packed my knife so we could undo the zip ties keeping her in her cage and set her free. We ran outside to see her Dad as our neighbor laughed and told us to “go ahead” as he handled all 8 pieces of luggage.

She was overjoyed, as were we. We had made it.

We loaded up the little truck meant for three people not four and a dog and drove Alaska style to our destination: breakfast.

Three days of traveling and it was finally time to settle (at least for a few days until we moved again to our house sitting spot).

We ate and enjoyed and marveled at the enormous strawberries on each of our plates that were merely there for garnish.

Garnish.

In Alaska you’d be lucky to get a sprig of parsley. Never a strawberry. In Alaska, strawberries are like gold nuggets. You don’t just throw them on a plate.

We had made it, to the land of plenty, to the bountiful land I’d grown up in.

Strawberries as garnish for breakfast.

It’s good to be back.

Even with the headlights blaring, it’s still an amazing sky here.

Today Was a Good Day

Some days stand out more than others. Some days remind me more than others of where I am, of the majesty of this place and of the refreshing concoction of absolute wilderness and strangely cosmopolitan offerings we enjoy and of the importance of friendship.

It was a Sunday and a somewhat gloomy day in the very first moments of September. Some gloomy days welcome me to the indoors, others make the indoors feel frantic and claustrophobic. This one embodied the latter. Although I typically think of Sundays as a home day for family time (and pancakes. Lots of pancakes), our schedules haven’t really met up to make this shiny Sunday ideal a possibility. And so I sat in our cabin alone, knowing I should be writing or reading or whatnot and enjoying the peace and quiet but I was instead feeling stifled by the four walls around me. I needed to get out.

In these moments I typically suit up and head out alone, walking the River Trail by our house (hoping the dog doesn’t ditch me) and returning refreshed. But that day I needed more than the River Trail. I needed an adventure. Since my post about getting out a few weeks ago I’ve been on a sort of mission to explore more whenever possible. Sunny days make it easy, it’s the gloomy ones that feel a bit like a ball and chain. But once you’re out, and break free of whatever imagined heaviness you felt, you realize you were always free and well, it’s on.

And so I ventured out of my typical approach of solo outings and contacted a girlfriend instead. She is someone I’d enjoyed meeting up with all Summer but we hadn’t made time to have intentionally set girl time, it had always been by a gathering’s happenstance instead. She replied immediately.

“I’ll be ready to go in 30 minutes.”

Oh, snap.

Apparently it was time to get moving. In true Sunday fashion I was still donning PJs, sleepy eyes and a head full of bed.

I started collecting what I’d need. We had decided on a walk to The Toe (the end of one of the local glaciers). I dressed and I packed (snacks, water, a knife, extra socks, jacket, rain jacket) gave the house one final look and set outside to get going. 30 minutes had already passed. She was going to walk and meet me down at the parking spot (literally one spot to the right of the No Passing sign down at The Toe) after 30 minutes. I realized that she didn’t know how far I lived (and I had overestimated my get up and go timing) and told her to hold those horses but that I was on my way.

Right?

I remembered then that I had told our neighbor that I would exercise his pup that day. And so I loaded Cinda up into our new (to us) truck and headed out to gather him.

Nope.

The truck (which had been giving us quite the go around in true wilderness vehicle fashion with an un-diagnosed fuel issue which had already stranded us multiple times) started but the moment I put it into reverse it chugged to a stop. I tried again. This time she fired up with gusto (thattagirl!) and I decided to take a few steps forward before venturing backwards again (there was a hump within the first few feet behind us which required a bit more power than the little lady seemed to have). She roared forward and then started strong backing up and…chugged to a halt. Cinda looked at me like she did while I was learning the stick shift last winter, as if to say “Lady, I could do this with my eyes closed”. Well, close those eyes Cinda Jones because this is about to be a do-si-do dance of frustration. I tried the back and forth a few more times before calling it on account of gas. She needed a fresh pot to brew on (she seems to think she’s empty when she’s not and so sometimes adding 5 gallons of gas does the trick, even if there’s already plenty of fuel to spare).

I topped her off and ta-da! Off we went with Jones rolling her eyes the whole time. We were on our way and, dog-disses aside, were having a pretty good time already. I popped on some tunes and headed to get our second backseat driver: Cinda’s brother Diesel.

After shocking him half to death just by opening the door due to his hearing loss it then took me almost 5 minutes to get him out the door. I pet him and cooed at him and made big gestures, all the while hearing the truck chugging in park (no way was I turning the beast off after all that) and hoping she would continue. Finally, he rose, stretched and gaily skeedadled towards the truck. He knew the drill, even if he’d never seen the truck before. I loaded him up and got in myself as the dogs settled in with their backs to one another, looking out their respective windows without so much as a ruff of acknowledgement. Oh siblings.

Finally we were off.

We decided on a new meeting place: The Restaurant. After all that, this girl needed some stronger coffee. Coffee, some chit-chat and an enormous breakfast burrito later and now all of us were off together.

I realized quickly that I didn’t know where I was going. I had been driven down to The Toe once last year when I had first arrived and once again via the Wagon Road coming from the opposite direction on the back of a 4-wheeler where I was more concerned with spotting the bears leaving the plentiful piles of bright red berry bear poop than I was with remembering directions.

Thankfully, my girlfriend had a solid knowledge versus my inkling and she guided us safely into harbor.

The leaves setting the mountains afire in color.

It was beautiful. The day which before had felt gloomy now felt luminous. We started walking to the glacial lake when we spotted what looked like a photo shoot. Three girls were gathered behind a rock. Two were doting on one, bringing her flowers and fixing her locks. Then, I realized that I knew one of them. I waved hello and she shouted back joyfully:

“We’re having a wedding!”

We shouted our congratulations to her friend and looked to the left to see the groom and his men waiting for the lovely bride. It was beautiful and set such a sweet tone to head into nature with.

We walked along the cliff’s edge of the lake as the dogs ran up and down the steep terrain. Eventually it evened out and we descended on an easier slope.

Icebergs ahead!

Just then, the dogs went crazy. They had picked up a scent (they were no longer ignoring one another. Once out in the open they run together, trading off leading and deciding together what should and shouldn’t be peed upon by both of them). They followed it with a voracity that is normally reserved for…uh oh.

Bears.

Just as I realized that my girlfriend coincidentally said: “You know, I was going to bring my bear spray (essentially a massive can of pepper spray that is a favorite accessory out here if one is without or not in favor of a gun) but then I realized that I was with you and you’d know how to handle it.”

Funny you should say that. I had packed two dogs as protection but noting further.

Just then, as we neared the water’s edge, I looked down.

There they were.

Bear prints.

Not just any bear prints. These were brand new, and huge and clawed, meaning that they likely belonged to a grizzly bear.

Oh joy.

I alerted my girlfriend and we both looked up to see the dogs running after the scent. The good news was that the tracks were heading in the direction we had come from, and thus away from us, and so we called the dogs off and to us and continued hastily in the opposite direction of the enormous prints.

We walked and we walked and we walked, occasionally looking over our shoulders for a hungry grizzly, until we made it to the far end of The Lake where we dropped in to explore some new caves. The ice of the glacier proved too slippery without cramp-ons (little metal teeth you attach to your shoes) and so we decided to continue on to find more easily accessible caves further into the moraine (basically the dirt and rock on top of the glacier which is sometimes very thick and sometimes so thin that a mere scratch exposes the ice below).

…and then there’s the enormous boulders too.

The best part about hiking on the moraine is that you never know what you will find and there is only the trail that you make. Nothing is laid out in front of you. And so we chose our route, sometimes following the dogs, sometimes choosing to scale different approaches more friendly to our two-legged selves when we came upon another body of water. The color was unbelieveably blue. Just across from it was a beautiful cave created by the melting and morphing of the glacier.

The moraine and the glacier are a constantly evolving landscape. Sometimes huge “wormholes” (big holes standing tall above the ice created by the melting of the ice) will suddenly be gone, collapsed and melted. A lake within the glacier can break and flood through the holes and crevices and places we explore. Rocks fall. It is a beautiful place but also a place for vigilance. Look before you leap.

And so as we went into the hollowed out cave we watched for falling rocks and debris, noticing the piles from previous falls. Just as I had finished taking a picture of a little ice bridge formed by melting and had turned my back to walk back to the little lake a shift must have occurred and rocks and debris came spilling onto the area where I had just been standing seconds before.

This cave is made completely from ice and covered in rock and dirt.

Time to move on?

We watered the dogs and ourselves and then ventured out and up and took stock of our surroundings.

In all truth we didn’t have any real idea where we were and suddenly it was getting late.

Looking down towards the cave after crawling out. Suddenly neither of the lakes were visible.

We had a few hours before we needed to be back still but we had been walking already for hours. We took in the landscape and starting positioning ourselves in a general direction. We didn’t want to take the same route twice and so we went up and over hill upon hill upon hill until we hit a treeline with sandy dirt and easier walking which led up all the way back to the truck.

Icebergs, Lakes, Sand?

Cinda Jones in all of her glory.

It was ice cream time. I had been stalking a cone of ice cream from the General Store for two weeks now. Every time I had tried to get ice cream they had been closed or I had been working. It just wasn’t happening. But not today. Today I knew their hours and I was ready.

We loaded the pups and set off for an ice cream sundae Sunday.

Or not.

The truck wouldn’t start.

Thankfully, I had 5 gallons of gas in a can that I had thrown in the back of the truck (I had already pumped the can full twice that day: once before trying to leave, then I had emptied it into the truck in our driveway when she wouldn’t start, then I had gone through the rigmarole to fill it all over again.

Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t gas.

The battery was dead.

Thankfully, I remembered that The Chief had told me he had put jumper cables in the truck.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a soul around except for us. The wedding party had left, no one was there and we wanted to solve this via the ladies, not just by calling our boyfriends for help.

Thankfully, we remembered that our other girlfriend was in the Hill Town that day. I called her. My phone wouldn’t work. It rang and picked up but I couldn’t hear a thing. Thankfully, my girlfriend’s phone did work and she was able to get a hold of her. She said she’d be happy to but that she was almost out of gas and wasn’t sure she could make it home if she also came to get us.

Problem solved. We had 5 gallons of gas for trade.

She was on her way.

A little while and some trail mix later and she arrived to save the day. We all laughed realizing that we three approached the task differently, but too many cooks in the kitchen worked out just fine and a few minutes later the truck was purring again. We filled her tank with a couple of gallons and thanked her.

Notice that the lights are on? Yup, me too. I’m still new to the truck and, well, I forgot they were on.

She had to leave then and so we continued on our way back to town with just enough time to make it to yoga class (yoga class in the woods?! I know. Pretty amazing). By now our ice cream dreams were in the past. Another day.

We parked and walked into the old cabin where yoga was being held. We arrived to the welcoming smiles of other girlfriends. A big bellied stove in the middle of the room took the chill off until the motions could warm us on their own. It was beautiful and exactly what I needed and suddenly two hours had flown by.

By the end, the hike and the yoga had started setting in and a serious tiredness was taking hold of me. There was live music in town that night at The Restaurant and as we drove by the glow of the place was as inviting as could be but I was done for the day. I hugged my girlfriend and thanked her for the day, for inviting me to go to yoga with her (something I always mean to do but rarely make it to), for getting lost in the wilderness with me and for brightening my day. We had brightened it for one another and a new closeness was born.

I slowly made my way home. The dogs were pooped and sprawled out in the backseat. I puttered towards the bridge when I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. I stopped the car.

Fireworks.

I drove to the middle of the bridge and put the truck into park and sat watching my own private show of the lights.

It’s a pretty special thing to start a day with a looming gloom only to end it with an impromptu fireworks show and fill it with every sort of soul warming goodness in between. That’s the magic of this place.

I made my way home that night feeling happy and fulfilled. I had nurtured a friendship, cared for myself, adventured and been awed, all in one day. I arrived home (after stopping to give The Chief a kiss and say goodbyes to friends until next year at a BBQ in our neighborhood) tired in the best of ways and happy in the most important of ways and the only thing I could think to myself over and over was:

today was a good day.

And it was.

A Winter Tale: Falling on Ice Ain’t Twice as Nice

Some days, you just can’t quite catch up with the universe. You wake up “off” and stay “off” until a switch flips and suddenly you are right side up again.

Before I lived in the woods one of those days might look like this:

My alarm failed to go off and thus I awoke in a state of stress and hurry, rushing to get to work on time.
In my rush to caffeinate and avoid looking as if I haven’t showered (which I haven’t because I am late) I am simultaneously putting on mascara while making coffee when I stab myself in the eye with the mascara wand and in my reaction, I knock over the freshly brewed coffee.
I remedy the eye situation but decide to forego a second round of coffee. I get into the car and get ready to go just as I remember I decided not to stop for gas last night. I guess I’ll be a little later to work.
The gas station is packed.
I get to work late and the storm continues and the day continues to hiccup me through it.
Finally, I get home (after hitting every red light possible) to an empty fridge and a cold house. I turn on the heat and jump into a warm shower and from there on out, the stress of the day is gone and there’s nothing a good movie and a bachelorette style dinner of cereal can’t fix. Of course the remote is out of batteries but hey, I survived.

In the woods, one day in particular sums up that “off” feeling perfectly. There was no work to be late to or boss to impress (or not impress) or gas stations to wait at impatiently but still, the same sort of tumbling, bumbling mess of a day arose, even way out here in the woods.

It went a little like this:

It was late Winter, almost Spring and the last few weeks of good skiing were upon us. My girlfriend invited me over for some girl time and a ski which I eagerly agreed to, having woken up a little blue and a little “off” that day. And so, I prepared myself to leave for a visit.

It wouldn’t take long.

Wrong.

My plan was to drive (with my newly acquired stick-shift skills which were still pretty shaky, especially in snow) our Jack-in-the-Box of a vehicle to the Footbridge since we still hadn’t broken down and bought our ($300) bridge pass for the vehicle bridge (which would have meant enjoying the luxury of driving straight to her doorstep). From there I would ski to her house a few miles away.

Easy peasy.

I just had to get a few things done first.

Coffee: we were out. So I ground by hand enough for the week. Out of almond milk too but hey, black will do.

Next up: I went to make a fire to take off the chill of the night before and to keep the house from freezing while I was out (The Chief was at work until late that night, working construction on concrete floors in the freezing temperatures).

Freezing temps the night before had made little ice covers on previously melting snow

Out of wood.

So I geared up to chop some and came back inside with a heaping armload.

Next up: water (we were out).

I again headed outside almost slipping down the ramp which had frozen a bit and came back up ten minutes later (after many a try to get the generator started) with 80 lbs. of water, stepping gingerly to avoid a catastrophic slip. Inside I managed to spill half of the contents of one bucket all over the cabin floor while trying to transfer it into the pot on the stove. As I stepped on the floor I could feel the water beneath the boards. I had also managed to put the fire out. Nice move.

I sopped up the water as best I could, chopped more wood, and got another fire going with the hopes of drying out the cabin floor.

Still, moving forward, determined to get to the comfort of my friend, I dressed myself for the still cold temperatures (it had gone way below zero the night before and the snow had turned to a slick sheet of ice with mush underneath, not exactly perfect conditions).

I chose all of my favorite layers, trying to cozy myself up and treat myself kindly in this already frustrating gloomy day. Long johns, thick socks, snow pants, flannel, sweatshirt, jacket, hat, gloves, face buff.

I was ready. Just then I looked at the impressive fire I had built and started to worry. Should I leave such a raging fire going unwatched? I’d heard about chimney fires and with the way things were going that day I figured it best not to take chances. I sat in my layers, starting to sweat, watching the fire, imagining coming home to a pile of smoldering wood (our house). I decided to check outside to make sure everything was ready to head out while the fire died down a bit.

I gathered my skis and walked over to the car. It was completely iced in.

The driver’s door doesn’t open so I went to the passenger’s side and just as I pulled the latch I started to slip on the ever so slick ice surrounding the vehicle. Haha, not so fast, universe. I caught myself, jumped in the car and popped open the driver’s side door. My first triumph of the day, at last!

I walked carefully around the car. As I was about to step into the driver’s seat to check the gas level I felt my foot break through ice as I fell backwards. The ice around the car was fresh from the night before. Apparently I had overestimated its strength. I was suddenly lying in an ice puddle, my skis and poles and ski boots scattered everywhere. I felt the water seep into my boots and down the back of my pants.

Wonderful!

I slipped a few more times until I finally got myself up and out of the ice pit and into the house where I stripped down, rung out my clothes, hung them to dry and dressed myself all over again. Luckily I had just been given a pair of snow boots so I didn’t have to wait until they dried and the ski boots which had fallen when I fell were still somewhat dry. Since I had been wearing my backpack when I fell I thankfully hadn’t hit my head on the ice but the backpack too had gotten wet so I unpacked, hung up wet contents and repacked it as well.

O.K. back in gear. The fire was no longer reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon, it had a steady flame and I felt comfortable leaving it. I again walked outside, slow and steady. The driver’s side door had shut in all the commotion so again I walked to the other side, crawled in and opened it. I slid through the car to the other side and checked the gas level.

It was full.

No, of course it wasn’t.

I carefully got out the other side and placed my skis and poles and boots and backpack into the car and then headed for the gas can which was also full.

No, of course it wasn’t.

I pumped gas quickly. Too quickly. The gas came spewing out the top and all over my newly adorned outfit. I’m used to a little gas so I just went with it. I tried to add gas to the car but couldn’t find the funnel so I just went for it. It got everywhere. It was even too much for me to handle. I was like a walking match. I finished filling the tank and went back inside for yet another clothing change (though despite new clothes I still stunk of gasoline).

Alright! Fueled up and ready to go.

I made my way slip sliding to the bridge, carefully exited the car and got out my skis, changed into my ski boots, bungee corded my snow boots (the second pair of the day) around my backpack and off I went. The ice was slick and within moments I had almost landed on my back twice but no, not again universe. I was determined to stay upright.

I started to get the hang of the slick ice so much so that I called a good girlfriend while skiing (a first for me). I was feeling pretty impressed by myself and better and better as I listened to her words of wisdom when suddenly, I heard a helicopter almost directly overhead.

The T.V. show.

They were filming the area. I immediately thought to myself, “ugh, I don’t want to be in their shot, I didn’t agree to this!” And as I took one look up, deciding to ski away quickly to shelter under a nearby tree what happened? I fell completely backwards on an uphill that was at such an angle that even wearing my backpack with boots strapped to the back I still hit my head.

Hard.

I picked up my phone and the last remnants of my pride and sanity and told my girlfriend what had just happened when suddenly, the fog lifted.

I started laughing, giggling at first and then it morphed into a roar. Maybe I was concussed or maybe the fall just knocked it out of me. She was laughing on the other end and our sudden shift just kept egging one another on. I started moving again, phone in one hand, ski poles in the other, trying not to fall again but at the same time suddenly being O.K. with all of it.

Yes, today I was clearly out of sync with the universe. I wasn’t jiving and oh freakin’ well. My girlfriend, after we had finally stopped laughing said “Wow, you’re dealing with this day really well” and I remember finally understanding that it wasn’t up to me. This day was a bit of a lion but my anger towards it wouldn’t do me any good and really, I had to just laugh at all that had happened: more wardrobe changes than a pop concert, bumps and bruises, turning our house into a lake, a splitting headache, falling while simply looking up in front of a whole crew of people I knew, stinking of gasoline and still, it could have been worse.

We got off the phone when I realized that I was suddenly lost. I had decided, in my new attitude towards the day, to try a shortcut I had heard of but had never tried, especially in Winter.

I called my girlfriend whom I was visiting and she, as per usual, didn’t answer. I had already made a few gut instinct turns while on the phone and couldn’t be totally sure of the path I had already taken and so, the only way to go was forward. I continued on with confidence and immediately hit another slick spot and down I went!

Again.

Third fall’s the charm?

I picked myself up and got the snow out of my pants and continued on. Eventually, the girlfriend called back and I described my surroundings in detail:

“Well, there are a lot of trees.”

“Did you pass the left turn to the Toe yet?”

“Sure!” (I had no idea)

“Just go straight, Julia. No turns.”

Okey dokey, I got this.

And I did. Eventually I found her (a couple hoots and hollers exchanged between us helped). She walked down from her cabin to greet me and after a quick once over and a lot of friendtuition (friend intuition) she asked:

“Woah, my dear what happened to you today?”

We went inside, me leaving my boots on because we had planned to go for a ski, that was the plan, right?

“What do you need?”

I love her.

What I needed was to slow the heck down for a minute. What I needed was to recognize that the comfort I had spent the whole day in discomfort to get to was suddenly in front of me. She didn’t care if we skied of just sat and talked and we ended doing the latter for quite a while. Suddenly, the day was almost gone (it had taken me almost four hours to get there from the time I had talked to her that morning when it should have taken one) and I was exhausted and in pain and emotionally drained but after telling her the story of my day which again ended in an uproar of laughter I felt even better. We decided to go for a quick ski in which I did the most epic slow motion fall either of us have ever seen, setting my headache right back in place.

Fourth fall’s the charm?

We returned, still laughing about the fall when she opened a cider and promptly hit herself in the neck with the cork, resulting in a bruise. We roared. I made pepper sculptures while we cooked dinner and we spent the rest of the night talking and laughing, a lot of laughing.

The first part of that day may have been some of the most frustrating moments I’ve ever had. All I wanted was to get to my friend and it seemed the universe was hell-bent on making me work for it. Maybe that’s what it needed from me, a little gusto. Most everything that could have gone wrong did and things I didn’t even think could happen happened. Even in the woods (I might even say especially in the woods), those days happen just when you don’t need them the most, just when things are already hard. That’s when those days happen.

This whole week was kind of like that day but with its parts evenly dispersed through seven and it seemed to be that way for a lot of folks. It was like trudging through mud. But instead of suffer silently, people talked. I had people I love dearly and people I barely knew telling me how hard the week had been for them, that tears kept coming and frustrations kept jumping in the way of progress and they didn’t quite know why. Maybe it was the weather (it’s been raining and gloomy for weeks), maybe it’s the Summer coming to an end, maybe it’s a deep-seated issue, maybe it’s really nothing at all. Either way it was a weird one and I couldn’t stop thinking about that day last Winter where eventually all I could do was laugh.

Even the sunsets were weird. Beautiful, but weird.

And so, I remind myself that no matter where I am, those days will happen, those weeks will happen. I will fall flat on my back (or more recently on my face, resulting in a beautiful black eye just in time to see my family last week where my nephew told me “Auntie Juju, you look like a zombie”. Thanks, kiddo). I will feel the buildup of pressure and frustration and I can decide to run from it (though it seems to run faster) or I can stop, look at it straight in the eye, see it’s not so bad and appreciate the ridiculousness of it all.

This week may not have been my shining moment of glory but hey, at least I was in good company and at least together we were finally able to laugh some good belly laughs. If you’re going to be out of sync with the universe, it’s at least nice to be there in good company.

Cheers to answering honestly when asked how you are and to finding some friends to wade through the muck with, it makes it a lot easier. And hey, at least after a weird week of rain (or three) the mushrooms, some as big as your head, come out to surprise you.