wilderness

There’s Always Something in the Woods

Last week was the first time I drove Bluebell (my mini motorcycle) all the way up the mountain to work.

I hadn’t driven her up there yet because:

a: I wasn’t totally sure she would make it. I had taken her up little hills before and she had struggled a bit, to say the least.

I had gotten stuck at the bottom of a hill in the 4th of July weekend crowd. Without anywhere to go but up and starting from a dead halt I had gunned it and had crawled up the hill so slowly that I crept up alongside two tourists and matched their pace, despite my full throttle action. I just looked over and gave them a nod. Yup, check out this hog, ladies. Pretty badass. I was going so slow that I almost fell over. I’m sure it was a scene from “Dumb and Dumber”, or the like, reincarnated. I couldn’t help but just laugh out loud since they only stared back at me, unimpressed by the sheer power they were witnessing.

Yes, that slow scale was situational but still, I worried. The way to work is 7.5 miles and the last 4 miles are a steady incline resulting in a 1,000ft. gain in elevation. I grew up basically at sea level so this gain to me seems pretty substantial. Needless to say, past embarrassments (or extremely cool events depending on how you look at it) taken into account, I was apprehensive, which was furthered by the next issue:

b: If she did make it, I had no idea how long it would take and therefore no idea when to leave for work. Things here are impossible to gauge. Less than 8 miles to work should take little to no time at all. Wrong. In a car it often takes 45 minutes. That’s almost to San Francisco departing from where I’m from in CA. Plus, even if I gave myself “plenty” of time there still was the possibility that she would break down and then I’d be stuck pushing her uphill and end up late to work.

I hate being late to work.

And so I avoided it for the first day I was scheduled to go up since getting Bluebell.

But come the second day of work and the second encouragement from The Chief that “of course she will make it up the hill” I decided to go for it.

I gave myself an hour to get there.

Or so I thought.

After packing for the day (meaning I packed a different shirt for if it got hot up at work, snacks to get through another 10-12 hour day, pants to paint in if the food truck was slow, bug spray, sunscreen, gloves and a hat and a jacket for the ride home and a change of clothes for the evening and an extra pair of socks. Seriously, you can never have too much along for the ride in Alaska. The weather changes faster than you can imagine)

I kissed The Chief goodbye and ran outside to greet Bluebell and head off for the day.

Wrong.

The little lady needed some fuel. So I ran to get the 5 gallon can of fuel.

Empty.

I rushed her over to the 55 gallon drum of gasoline in our driveway and pumped away, a bit too enthusiastically, resulting in gasoline spilling all over the both of us. Mmmm, gasoline in the morning (creepily enough, I truly love the smell but I’m sure it’s not the best aroma to serve food in). Then, on a whisper from my intuition, I checked the oil.

Good thing.

Almost gone.

I ran again to the shed where the empty gas can had been to find the oil. Empty bottles were everywhere, but a full one? That was a bit more of a search. Finally I unearthed some and ran inside to check with The Chief that I had in fact gotten the correct oil for her.

Check.

Back outside again I topped her off with oil. We were ready to ride. We just had to get her started.

Getting going is a five pronged process:

1. Turn on the fuel switch (I never even knew those existed)

2. Click the selector to RUN

3. (First find the key) Turn the key to ON

4. Wind her up with the foot crank

5. Pull the brake to start her

About ten false starts and some manipulation of the choke and she was finally off and on her way with me along for the ride.

At this point we had 45 minutes to get to work. I was calculating as I drove whether or not I would be late when suddenly a moose appeared in the middle of the road. She looked at me as I slowed down to give her space (moose are unpredictable and definitely something to stay out of the way of. A hoof to the face? No thanks) but instead of a standoff she just crossed and disappeared into the woods. Alright, 40 minutes to make it to work now. Unlike a vehicle we didn’t have to cross the bridge (meaning get out and unlock it, get back in, lock it again, check for other vehicles etc.) which takes longer. Nope, we just had to cross the foot bridge.

Did I mention it’s tourist season?

Bridge courtesy for motorized vehicles is to wait on the other side for others to cross or if you’re antsy to follow far behind (especially 4-wheelers since they can’t fit past a pedestrian). On the motorcycle I can easily pass someone but in the vein of courtesy, I kept a good distance between myself and the couple in front of me.

They slowly crossed without a care in the world, me behind them trying to keep my balance as I crept along. Finally we got across and we was able to move ahead on our merry way.

Sort of.

I should have known the holdups weren’t through with us.

Half-way up the hill I hit The Mudslide. I was at the bottom of it, heading up a short steeper hill within the 4 mile long hill and what was atop the steep little hill at the top of The Mudslide? Another dang moose.

Don’t get me wrong, I love moose, but they are a million times more unpredictable than a Whack-A-Mole and I had already ran into one that had been easy that morning. What were my chances of two? At least this one too was solo. Better than a mother and a calf.

This one was a teenager, through and through. It looked me up and down, considered moving and then considered otherwise. It paced back and forth along the road. I stayed at the bottom of the steep little hill, not wanting to have another incident like the one with the “Dumber” moment. If I matched its pace going uphill that was way closer of contact than I wanted. Ideally, I’d just zip past it, but since it was at the top of the hill and barely progressing forward, that was unlikely.

I honked my horn (it sounds almost exactly like the “meep, meep!” of the Roadrunner) and the teen just looked back at me, unimpressed. Did I just get dissed by a moose? I revved my little motor and the same look came at me again.

Finally, the teen moved into the woods. I cheered and waited for a moment before gunning it up the hill.

Success!

Nope.

As I peaked on the hill there was the moose. The teen seemed to levitate off the ground as I reached the top of the hill as it hadn’t in fact gone into the woods so much as up and over the hill out of sight and into the little pond alongside the road. I swerved to miss any incoming kicks and hauled tail up the second little hill in front of me, checking my rearview mirrors as I kicked up rocks and tried to steer clear of the big ones (the dump-you-off-your-bike-ers).

Ten minutes later I had finally made it to work.

What a day!

And it had only just begun.

We were busy busy busy and the day flew by. It was Friday, which means softball games at the ball field, games which I hadn’t gotten to play in weeks due to the tonsillitis events. I was stoked to get there. Just as we closed and started to clean in order to leave we heard a clap of thunder. The air shifted and the sky went black and it started pouring harder than I have ever experienced in Alaska.

Bluebell!

She was outside with her seat completely exposed (a seat which is currently only foam as the covering seems to have disintegrated over the years). I ran and covered her.

It seems a wet bum wouldn’t be the biggest issue of the night however.

I had forgotten my rain gear.

Rule #1 in Alaska: Layers. Always pack layers. And I had, all but one: my rain jacket.

Never forget your rain jacket. In Alaska it rains almost every day (or snows in Winter). Not always hard and not always long, but almost always a bit of rain.

This was a torrential downpour and I was caught without gear.

Oh joy!

My closing duties were done and the storm hadn’t moved down the mountain yet. Softball was still happening but if I rode down I would have been in town without warm clothes (my change wasn’t enough to get me through soaking wet) and soaked to the bone. So I waited for a ride from my boss and bid Bluebell adieu.

Well, she almost made her first full trip up to work and back.

At least she was left with a view

By the time we got down to softball the storm had reached them as well and the game was rained out.

The next morning we couldn’t get up to her before work but seeing as I didn’t have nearly as far to go to work that day (I work at two places: one is the food truck at the top of the hill, the other is a restaurant at the bottom of it) I decided to try a different mode of transportation: my bike.

Last year I had a hand me down bicycle which had tire and gear issues which we were never quite able to remedy. Riding up to the food truck town was pure torture as none of my gears worked but one and riding uphill in one gear for over an hour is something I’ll leave to the pros, thank you very much.

This year, I had borrowed a friend’s bike but it was too big for me. Every time I had to get off of it I would try to hop and propel myself forward and every time I got on I would try to get a sort of moving start and aim not to fall (which was a good aim but not always the reality).

Finally, my neighbor’s bike which had been stolen (here it’s called “borrowed” but without permission it seems a bit more of a steal) all winter reappeared. In its absence she had purchased another bike and so after having seen me and my don’t-fall-over tactics on the Too Big Bike she offered it to me.

It fit!

The gears were finicky and only sort of worked and the handlebars surprised me with a sticky residue nearly impossible to remove but it had more than one gear and it moved me where I needed to go. It was all good.

Except the seat: the seat would not stay put. I’d adjusted it and tightened it and tested it countless times. It would even sometimes stay for a whole day but then the next time I would ride it I would slowly feel myself start sinking down, down, down. And so I would ride with my knees basically in my teeth, huffing and puffing just to get it going down the dirt road.

But, I ran into a girlfriend the day after my Bluebell expedition and she somehow strong-armed the bike into staying put. The seat remained in place and I was able to bike and bike and bike.

Until the tire went flat.

Easy fix, right? I borrowed a pump.

Nope.

It had “special tires” and for the life of me I couldn’t find a “special pump”.

And so it sat with flat tires and I resorted to the next step: two feet as my mode of transportation.

I walked to work the next day and at the end of my shift, The Chief and I drove up and finally collected Bluebell.

Someone (who knows?), unaccustomed to the fuel line situation, had left the fuel on and so we worried she wouldn’t start but after a few tries start she did. I let The Chief ride her home since he hadn’t gotten any Bluebell time. Finally she was back home and my modes of transport were twofold again (legs and Bluebell).

The next day it rained and so I chose the less painful route of walking (water pellets hurt on a motorcycle). The Chief had the day off and spent it working on his own motorcycle which finally was resurrected.

Two working machines?!

We may not have a car that works but darned if we don’t have two machines.

That day I asked my girlfriend (the strong one) if she had a bike pump I could use and it turned out she did. I brought it home and pumped those babies up the next day before work.

Three modes of transportation?! (Legs, bike, motorcycle) This was too much.

And obviously it was too much.

5 minutes into my ride I started feeling myself slowly shrink.

The damn seat again?!

There’s always something in the woods. It’s always something when you live in the woods.

The day after The Chief got his motorcycle running he rode it into town. We got a ride home and the next day when he came back to get it he couldn’t start it, not even with a little help from our friends (Joe Cocker really rocks that version).

Even Cinda was up to help

This is a My Damn Bike Won’t Start face in case you’ve never seen one.

That’s just how it goes.

There’s always something in the woods.

Be it a moose or a holdup. There’s always something. No gas. No oil. Fuel left on. Rain storms. A dog that needs to come home so you leave a bike in town. A flooded pathway. A working bike one day followed by who knows what happened the next. A low rider bike. A wet seat.

But hey, at least it keeps it interesting. Between the dust and the potholes, two wheels and four wheels alike all have trouble at some time and if you can’t just throw your hands up and laugh along with Alaska then she will be on her own just laughing at you (in a kind way but still, you won’t be in on the joke).

I remember the first time anything big went wrong with my old car in California. The seat stopped adjusting (it was automatic) and my reaction was to almost be offended. How could this just stop working? I’m driving here, people. I’m so important, right?

Alaska doesn’t care who you are she just cares how you get through it and believe me, it’s not always with grace and ease and a song in my heart. But most of the time I can just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. So many vehicles, so little movement. When half of your day is just spent hoping to make it to and from work and the other half is spent working, there’s really no time to be stay grumpy.

The road here is always bumpy and so one can either learn to avoid the big bumps and glide with the rest or point each one out (but that sounds very tiring).

And so who knows? Maybe this week I will find a way to fix the seat. By then I’m sure Bluebell will catch a cold or my shoes will go missing or our vehicle will start working. It’s a constant game of musical vehicles but hey, none of them have electronic seats, so at least that won’t go out.

Cheers to living on the edge and in the woods. Who knows what’s next? Fingers crossed and backpack packed (this time with a rain jacket).

Love in the Woods: Year One

A year and one week ago I met my person at the Friday softball game. We talked all night after the game at the local watering hole and as I fell asleep that night my girlfriend told me I had whispered to myself that I was going to kiss him.

A year ago today that kiss happened and it took us both into a whole new life.

I resisted at first, tried to tell myself that it wasn’t a part of the plan but it was a resistance like politely refusing the last pour from the bottle of wine. No, no, no. I couldn’t possibly. O.K well, maybe.

I drank from the cup and the potion suited me just fine and I finally relaxed into the reality that I was done for (in the best of ways).

The reality that we were together at last, since once I met him it felt like I had finished a journey I didn’t know I was on, overcame the planner in me. I went with the flow and answered questions about our future with “we will see”.

But eventually, as the Summer started to come to a close and my departure to California rang the leaving bell louder and louder, we needed to plan in order to see one another again.

The Chief had always said he would never leave Alaska for any stretch of time longer than he had to.

I left Alaska in the last week of August to meet a girlfriend visiting from Norway and to attend two weddings of four people I love dearly and, of course, to see my family and friends.

Thank goodness for the draw of loved ones; it would have been tough to pull me from Alaska otherwise. In some ways it was fear that made me want to stay in Alaska, fear that we would change while apart or forget what we had. But after living my life in that way for so long, I knew I needed to stretch and to leap with at least a little faith. I mean, geez, I had been drawn to Alaska like a magnet. Time away from one another could either make that draw stronger or dissolve it completely and that was a reality I couldn’t change. So leap I did, back to California, back to the comfort of my people and the joys of a long shower and electricity.

At times, perhaps fueled by the worries of others, perhaps fueled by my own inner gremlins, I wondered if in fact The Chief would get on that plane on October 5th. Maybe he would have a change of heart. Maybe the uphill battle of leaving would be too much. He would need to winterize the house completely and shut her down for who knows how long. He would need to get the dog approved for flight. He would have to leave paying work that rarely occurred into Winter for pick up or no work at all in California. He was leaving all his comforts to meet me in mine.

But leave he did with a one way ticket and no plan of return.

We both leapt.

California was both wonderful and rough but we made it through together. We moved countless times, packing and repacking ourselves into nooks and crannies of wonderful hosts. We were given an RV and thought we were ready to roll, only to find out that it would take a lot more time and money than we had planned, plus we would have to find a place we could park it. Oh, and the dog got skunked the first night we spent in it. It was pouring down rain and there was no covered area for her. We couldn’t leave her outside so essentially, we all got skunked.

Oh joy.

But oh well.

We love her.

Still to this day I can smell skunk when she gets wet.

It was constant logistics and shuffling.

Our toothbrushes in the RV. Looks like one of them and got pushed off the pillow and almost the bed. This is us in toothbrush form.

We spent a few minutes in the morning and a few hours together every night since I was working like a fiend to save enough to get me through Winter while The Chief tried to busy himself during the day finding random work or adventure in order to give our hosts some privacy. We had to pack up my storage unit to the brim, gather last items from my ex and tidy up my life to actually leave for a stint (since last time I had planned to be back in a tic).

We were tired and overworked and underplayed and so in love that it didn’t matter because we would rather be in Choreland all day than be 3,000 miles apart.

You make me smile.

Finally, we both felt it. It was time to leave. We had already been through so much together and yet it was time to embark into more unknowns. This time, the unknowns would be for me.

Winter in Alaska.

As we left my parents’ house my Mom and I both went weepy. If I had a choice, we would live down the street from one another but my preference would be my dirt road in Alaska and hers would be her paved road in California and so we bid adieu and an “until we meet again” and hoped that again would be sooner rather than later.

Just a slight family resemblance, eh? Cinda Lou could not care less.

I felt stripped down and built up all at once as we left. We were starting a new chapter. This was no longer a simple Summer Romance. We were embarking on a life together. We had met one other’s families and friends and now it was time to create our home.

It may be harder to read this way but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. On the plane, headed to Alaska. In Winter.

California was a condensed version of hard and easy. Winter in Alaska was exactly the same and at the same time the polar opposite and with a longer life span than our time down south.

I planned our Winter in my head. Me at the oven pulling out perfect loaves of bread while The Chief played guitar for us and we all (The Chief, The Lou and I) sang along. Silly me, planning again.

Some days weren’t so far away from that glittery image and others were miles off. The Winter is something people here congratulate you for surviving, both in body and in spirit. On an extra cold day where all you want to do is cozy up with your person and read books but your person has to work all day in the cold, it can get lonely. A phone call to a friend while taking a walk can be the perfect medicine until your phone dies from the cold and the dog ditches you because she’s smart enough to head home in such weather.

You feel alone.

You miss the convenience and independence of your own car on a city road. You miss meeting a girlfriend for a drink or a walk. Heck, you just miss a walk where you don’t have to batten down the hatches and dress yourself for war with the elements to simply walk outside.

You miss your Mom.

But that is the whole point of the Winter. She brings you back to bare basics and strips away the comforts you expect. She forces you inward. She forces you to truly greet yourself, wherever you’re at and so instead of becoming tri-lingual or a master knitter I ended up spending a lot of time by myself getting to know me and trying to become the person I want to be.

The process wasn’t always pretty and in a 408 square foot home (counting the loft) it wasn’t something either of us could really ever could hide. And thank goodness for that. We weathered the Winter together and our relationship grew because of it. Without much of a separate room to go to in a tiff I would go and sit on our cooler in the kitchen to cool down (I didn’t realize the pun in that until just now) and then we would come back together with more understanding and less fire.

Spring Break came and the Break-Up began. I didn’t realize until later that people were also talking about couples. The sun shines a bit more and the hardness of Winter is over and sometimes as the ice breaks, couples too go their separate ways.

I can see how it happens but I’m so glad it didn’t. In fact, I wished for more Winter because between work and surgeries I never really felt like we got the Winter I had planned on. Whoops, I did it again. But that’s O.K. because we have so many Winters ahead of us. All of them will be different and all of them will probably differ from what I expect but I welcome them.

Now it is Summer again, the time when we met, the time when we fell in love. The leaves are back, colors are everywhere, bees are out and mosquitoes are trying to conquer us all, bite by bite.

Dandelion armies at attention, ready to recreate themselves.

There are little reminders everywhere tucked into ourselves and this town and the people within it of how we came to be and how I first saw The Chief. Now, as I know him deeper it’s sweet to look upon the past when he was still such a mystery and I’m sure in another year I’ll feel the same again as we both continue to change.

The other day, I was wiggling my toes as I wrote. I looked up to see The Chief smiling at them. He loves my feet, the one thing I’ve consistently been self-conscious about on my body throughout my entire life. I even tried to hide them from him when we first started dating by way of shoes and socks and covers but he found them. They were the one thing I didn’t want him to see and he loved them instantly and in a sense, this has been our way. The parts of us that we’ve tried to hide have found their ways from under the covers and instead of banishing them, we’ve tried to give love to the parts that the other sees as a flaw.

We’ve softened one other’s edges and brought down our shields because it simply hasn’t been possible to keep them up. For the first time I feel safe in my imperfections and safe in my person’s as well. Sure, there are things we both want to move past or change and we will but I feel a foundation, now one year old that has been strong enough to hold us together through all we have seen already.

Today is our anniversary and I am spending some of it writing because that is what I love to do. The Chief is happily researching fire videos to train the crew on rainy days and reading like a fiend. We will go out as a family (The Chief, The Lou and I) and explore and hike and then eat dinner with our friend family who brought us together and then watch an amazing friend do stand-up comedy at the Rec Hall. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect day. Heck, there might even be pancakes factored in there somewhere (there was).

Thank you Alaska for your hard-handed shoves and soft-fingered flicks to push me to where I am today: imperfect and in love in the middle of the woods. I never saw it coming and I only want to see it growing.

With all my heart, thank you.

A little time at The Toe.

There’s a Fire in them Fields

When I first told my California girlfriends back home that I was dating the Fire Chief of the Volunteer Fire Department here there were two and only two responses:

“Oh my god, how old is he?” Yea, I guess when I hear Fire Chief I think of an older man with a huge mustache. He can only check one of those boxes. And…
“Of course you are. Of course.”

Geez. I hadn’t thought of it as obvious until each and every one of them said that. I sensed a pattern…

I’ve always been interested in a more rugged lifestyle and hey, I’ve always worn cowboy boots year round, so I guess it does make sense that I would be attracted to a rugged place and a rugged cowboy-esque (think classic Marlboro, not rhinestone) man to go with it. The Fire Chief part was just a little title icing on top of the obvious cupcake, I guess.

Growing up and honestly pretty much until now, the only interactions I’d had with fire departments had been dichotomous and rarely fire related. I’d admired fire fighters as a kid and keep that wonderment and respect with me still to this day. I’d had child like interactions with fire personnel that I wasn’t acquainted with, like being sprayed off by fire hoses at the end of a 10k Mud Run I completed a few years ago.

On the opposite side of things, I also used to hang out with friends in high school who were part of the Volunteer Fire Department in the area with whom I would get into more trouble than public service. Sneaking into the Fire House to have a party (with the radios blaring in case of emergency and the guys on duty staying sober, don’t worry) was a common weeknight activity. But neither of the two interactions really had much to do with fire other than hoping that during the party that we would all get to slide down the ladder.

Firefighting to me was a very distant reality. One which I admired but did not see myself participating in. Looking back I’m not sure if it’s because I felt I had come upon the game too late ((most of my friends had been in the VFD (Volunteer Fire Department) for years already)) or if it was too much of a boy’s club to break into, or if, as a shorty I was too physically intimidated. I do know that it intrigued me, but I never pursued it.

So, upon moving here and finding my (apparently obvious) partner in crime who just so happened to be Fire Chief of the VFD in town, I again felt fire pique my interest but again shied away. The Chief holds meetings for the VFD on Wednesdays and I would conveniently always be working or busy.

That was last year.

However, come the middle of Winter last year with all the grant proposals and planning for the year ahead taking place in the middle of our small cabin, I started to get interested and invested and started thinking towards this year. I still felt intimidated. I still felt it was a bit of a boy’s club. But after talking about it we realized that in the event of a fire, considering how much we like to be together, we likely would be together. If The Chief was called to a fire I could either arrive with him, untrained and unable to do much to help, or I could come to trainings, learn the equipment and become a member of the VFD.

Me?

It didn’t seem quite real, or feasible for that matter. I tried different angles to see if The Chief really was serious about needing me there. I tried to get out of it, but at the same time somewhat hoped he would push me towards it.

In true Chief fashion, he did.

“There’s no reason why you can’t do anything at the VFD that I can do and there’s no reason for you not to know how to help when we live in such a vulnerable area to fire. You’ve got this.”

Well, shoot. There’s no arguing that. We do live in a vulnerable area. We are in rural Alaska. The road to the town is 60 miles of pothole ridden gravel and dirt. Outside help would be a long time coming. We should know what we are doing. We are the initial attack force.

Changing out the Smokey Sign to High Fire Danger. Only you.

So, I resolved to go to meetings and try my best.

Not a bad place to train, I guess.

Piss packs and water reserves and mountains, oh my!

And it’s a good thing I did.

Three days after our second meeting in which we practiced running the different pumps on the different trucks and in which I tried, with fail, to memorize the order of operations to get water flowing, there was a fire.

Sure enough, The Chief was right. The first fire of the area and we were together, only now unlike last year, I could help.

A neighbor had come by to report smoke down the road from our house. Erratic winds had caused it to flow in his direction but not ours (we live on opposite sides of the fire and the winds had sent it his way. He also had to pass the area to get home whereas our turnoff is before the site). Smoke? The Chief had been alerted about a controlled burn in the area but had been assured the night before that it had been tucked in for the night and was completely out.

Or so they thought.

But they were wrong.

By the time The Chief and I got to the burn site there was not only smoke but open flames. Fire is tricky like that. She can seem like she’s gone and then, with just the right fuel from a windy day, she can pick right up as if resurrected from the dead.

A panoramic view of the burn site.

The winds were just so that day and the temperatures (for Alaska) were cooking that the situation could have spelled disaster. Surrounded by dead Spruce trees and fields of dried grass, we arrived to the open flames and immediately got to business. We live a mere 5 minutes down the road. That fire could have beaten us home if it caught the right wind, and then beaten our home to a pulp. The Department isn’t equipped for structural firefighting and so we would have tried to contain the fire but likely wouldn’t have been able to save our home. We would have had to watch it burn while we tried to contain it so we didn’t also have to watch our friends’ houses burn as well.

The firestarter (or rather the person who ordered another to oversee the fire) was called and told of what was happening and that we required immediate help. He may have thought that the fire was out but unfortunately he was wrong. Further, a fire should never have taken place the day before in the conditions we were experiencing and it should have been overseen by a larger group with better water back-up had things gone wrong. He sent a crew to help us to handle the situation.

Our neighbor had to drive the fire truck to the site while we watched the fire. We had left the truck in town, stationed to be near the more populated areas where fire seemed more likely. Of course, it was the day that we should have brought it home. When you live in a town where it takes twenty minutes minimum to get from our house to town in a loaded fire truck and there are only three functioning trucks in the area, it seems right that it should be centrally located and easily accessible by qualified members of the VFD if need be. But now, we were on our side of the bridge and the river without an immediate truck response.

When resources are limited, it’s hard to know how to best play them but from now on that truck will be with us every second, ready to respond and the two others will live on the opposite side of the river, poised for attack.

I seriously can’t imagine a better color scheme. I love that truck.

So, with the fire truck arrived and a hand crew to boot, we started at it. Having just gone through my first round of training, I figured I should defer to our neighbor and to The Chief to operate the pumps.

Wrong.

“It’ll be good training. Fire her up.”

Gulp.

O.k.

Thankfully, they were there to answer any questions which arose and I was able to get water flowing within minutes. Then, of course, I immediately walked away from the pump to ask The Chief a question while our neighbor headed out with the hose.

Easy-peezy, right?

Big mistake.

The pump runs at whichever pressure you set it at. That being said, if you walk away from the pump and the pump runs out of water and you’re still trying to run the pump, well, it will run. It will run itself right into the ground and blow up.

When you have three fire trucks total for a great expanse of land it’s best to keep all three functional. It would have taken almost an hour to get a different truck over to us had I broken the pump and it takes hours to get to town and weeks to replace the pump. Overall, it’s just best not to break it in the first place.

The neighbor quickly reminded me of all of this with just one quick point and shout.

“You walked away!”

I ran back to the pump.

“This is your station. You watch your water levels. You watch your guys. You watch your pump” said The Chief.

A few hand signal snafus (we didn’t really cover those yet) and a lot of digging and water later and the fire was contained and put out. I brought the throttle down slowly and then killed the engine. All was quiet again as everyone seemed to stop and look at what had become of the fire and to what could have been.

Having been surrounded in refuse smoke, we all stunk to high heaven but even smelling like a dump couldn’t break my spirit. I had helped. I had run the pump. It hadn’t been perfect, but I had learned and most importantly, I had gone to training even though I had been intimidated. I kept imagining myself just standing there, feeling helpless as The Chief did all the work and I was so glad that a different reality had been the case instead. While I ran the pump and our neighbor ran the hose, The Chief could call and report the fire, take wind speed measurements, check conditions and oversee the effort. I would have missed out on helping because I was intimidated and afraid to fail. What a waste that would have been and in a different situation, what a danger that could have been. An ego at bay (momentarily) helped keep a fire away.

Within the hour The Chief had been called onto patrolling duty by the Department of Forestry. 12 hour days of driving the area back and forth and up and around to monitor campfires from visiting campers and to be on the lookout for developing weather systems, smoke and the like. To me, living in or near a city, I never even knew to contemplate just how much attention goes into hyper rural fire prevention. A lightning strike could be the beginning of a fire. A cigarette butt or an unattended campfire, or sparks from metal contact or any number of things could start small and turn into something very dangerous. In a city, response is easier to mobilize (though the fire is no less dangerous). Out here, we are on our own for precious hours. And so, he is on watch for anything and everything that could lead to fire.

Two days later of patrolling later, there was a fundraiser for the VFD.

The event of a couple days past was abuzz in the community and so was the reality of the importance of the VFD. I watched as The Chief spoke to our community of the rising numbers of fire, the elevated danger of fire with our high temperatures and erratic winds and the dwindling water levels.

The historic Rec Hall

Throughout the night, the mountains of delicious potluck foods (seriously, this place can throw a potluck) and the music and dancing, I kept looking at The Chief with a new respect and a special sort of awe. I knew what he did was of great importance but I guess I hadn’t understood just how much was riding on his back. When he said the ‘fire was out’, the fire was out but what if it had sparked up again? It would have been on him. Placing the trucks and training his team and keeping the equipment functioning and funded. In the end, it all rests on his shoulders.

I’ve always appreciated being in a role of leadership. I can jump into a situation and see what needs to get done and help to delegate so that it does. But I’ve never been in the constant state of responsibility The Chief is in. I know that I could do it though I can’t say whether I’d volunteer for it, but someone has to.

Seeing The Chief in front of the attendees in this light, seeing him speaking to them, asking for their help since fire is such a community effort, seeing him in this situation of responsibility did make it obvious. I further understood what my girlfriends’ saw (or heard from me by phone) immediately. I love seeing this serious side, this side that makes me and others feel safe. This side that knows what the relative humidity levels are every morning and watches the sky like a hawk scans the ground. I love seeing him in Chief Mode and well, it’s Summer now. ‘Tis the fire season. I also love how Chief Mode affects me. I take myself more seriously now. When he asks me what the water level is off-hand, I answer confidently. At trainings (instead of being the goof-off I usually was in class) I listen because I know it could come into play and now, I’ve seen it come into play and seen the potential mistakes in play. There’s nothing like a sense of urgency or emergency to challenge oneself and I hope each time to better and better be able to respond. I also hope we never have to respond again but I’ll train every week nonetheless.

Engage Chief Mode.

…and co-pilot Lou

The Annual Summertime Shower Day Kickoff

In the woods, a working shower is king. It’s like having a four burner stove and an oven. People stop and congratulate you when they hear of your good fortune. No longer will your woodsy world contain the bucket shower or the river dash.

When I first arrived, I took my good fortune for granted. I figured everyone had a shower, running water, a laundry machine. My reality check came quickly in the form of a new friend whom upon my entering the bar (freshly showered, hair washed and all) remarked that “Someone near me has taken a shower and smells wonderful”. Sniffing about he came to me and buried his face in my hair and called others to do the same. “You smell like flowers”.

This town really knows how to roll out the welcome mat. I was in.

Still, it didn’t totally sink in just how exciting and rare having a real shower was until I saw another new friend running off to take a cleansing dip in the glacial waters of the swimming hole. That must be brisk, to say the best. People trade for showers here: veggies from my garden for a shower and laundry one day. A shower for an hour of tree work. The barter system is alive and well and often water based because really, is there much better after a long dusty day than a shower? I’d be hard pressed to answer “yes”.

“You look radiant! Did you shower today?”

“A few days ago, yes. Thank you”.

This is such a common exchange that not until writing about it did I realize that it ever seemed foreign to me. Year round it is difficult to shower here, even if you have a shower on site. It’s not that people are disinterested, it’s that it’s difficult and time-consuming and so the compliments aren’t just to say “Wow, you smell delicious” but rather a sort of unsaid “Congratulations for making it through the whole process”. A congratulatory compliment for showering? My gosh, my old showering self (at least once daily, or twice if it was a big gym day, which seems so foreign now) would have been to the moon with congratulations.

In Winter, congratulations are even more enthusiastic because it is that much harder to get everything done. It simply is difficult. Correction: in the Summer, it can be difficult (time-consuming to fill up, get systems running, etc.), in the Winter it is basically entering into a long-term relationship with each shower.

A shower this Winter? Well sure, I’d love one! I don’t have anything planned for the next 24 hours so I should be able to get one in. Ideally I’ll be able to as long as all the systems are in place and functioning and all the chores it takes to have a shower don’t take longer than a day.

Let’s see…

1st: Start a fire to warm the house (if you haven’t enough wood then start first by gearing up and chopping wood for a while. If you haven’t the logs to chop well, then you are out for a day of logging dead trees. Your shower will have to wait and your planning ahead will have to get in the game).

2nd: Bring the generator inside to warm up.

3rd: Find other chores to fill the next few hours until the generator is cozy and ready to purr, such as pumping gas to later fill the generator with. Afterwards, change your clothes once you come back inside because you’ve inevitably spilled copious amounts of gasoline on them while pumping fuel in your overzealous fashion.

4th: Gear up, buttercup. Gloves and snow pants and parkas, oh my! All to walk 20 feet outside. Bring the generator and watch your step as you carefully navigate the Ramp of Doom. Do Not Fall.

5th: Pull and pull and pull until the pullcord starts the generator. Plug in the well and start filling buckets. Take the buckets (now two at a time since you’ve gotten stronger since you first started this game) 40 lbs. each, one per hand and navigate once again the epic Ramp of Doom no-handed. Ideally some of the gravel your girlfriend spread the other night for fear of face planting on the icy surface still remains and you can find a little grip. Or you can just hightail it and hope for the best. Note: swinging the buckets forward at the last gap between the steps greatly reduces one’s chances of falling.

6th: Fill the reservoir for the shower. It’s around 15 gallons so that means repeating steps 5 & 6 a few times because after three buckets to fill the reservoir and 2 to fill the reservoir under the sink for our “running” water faucet and 1 more to fill the water on the stove and the tea kettle and the water pitcher and your water bottle you still need to fill up the 5 gallon buckets each once more in order to have reserve water for drinking inside.

7th: So, now, nose and eyelashes frozen, you are all watered up. The house is like a fishbowl. You’re swimming in it. In fact, you look like you actually have been swimming in it because you are soaked. Time for another outfit change. Your fire has dwindled a bit so give her a little extra gusto and start getting the house cooking for your shower time. The water in the shower reservoir needs to warm up a bit too because pumping from the well is nearly frozen water which means, at best, a pretty cold shower even with the water heater working. It’s now around 4pm so you will prep dinner while you wait for the heat to nip at the chill.

8th: It’s 6pm and The Chief comes home. You’ve prepped dinner, chopped wood, done dishes, hauled water, pumped gas, taken a morning walk so as to get at least a little Vitamin D and you are pooped. By the time you’ve finished dinner (and dessert, duh) you’re finally ready to take that shower but boy does it take some serious inspiration. Sleep is calling. It’s been dark since 4pm and your internal clock is ready to snooze. But a few listenings to “Eye of the Tiger”-esque songs and you are ready! You can do this!

You go upstairs and don your robe, get your towel, grab anything and everything you will need for during and post shower and bring down the water catch 10 gallon bucket in which you stand in during your shower to collect water. You then find your stool made from old timber (yea, you’re short) and lift the stairs to their resting place above the middle of the kitchen. You aim not to fall as you secure them into place and weeble wobble on your stool. You then close the pantry door you and The Chief fashioned to protect the goods under the stairs during showers. You hook the shower curtain up around the appropriate nails on the back of the stairs and tuck it into your bucket. Just then you realize that you forgot your washcloth upstairs. It’s too late for that fallen soldier, you decide, because otherwise you’d have to tempt fate again on your wobbly stool, undo all of the hooks, move the shower catch, undo the stairs and then redo it all over again upon retrieving your washcloth. You’ll make do without it, eh?

Water catch, propane and…showertime!

9th: It’s time. Alert the chorus, or at least iTunes. It’s shower time people. You hook up the shower to the battery in the living room, check that the hose in the reservoir is submerged, turn on the water heater, turn on the shower head and pray to hear a flow. You do, the heater kicks on, the water goes from freezing to scalding hot and finally evens itself out. This is it, your time to shine. You tag in like the finisher of a relay. Let’s do this.

Not much elbow room but it’s cozy and it works.

10th: Just as you’ve suds-ed up your locks and are ready to turn the shower head back on (we do military style showers. Get wet. Turn off shower. Suds up. Turn on shower to rinse. Turn off shower. Repeat repeat with shampoo and conditioner. Water only flows when necessary. Now you know why I love a hotel shower. On demand water? Count me in). You turn it on, avoid both the freezing and the scalding shifts and settle in to de-suds when you hear it.

The entire time you are showering, inside, outside, at a friend’s house, wherever, you are listening. Listening to the pump, listening for correct suction. Listening and waiting for any sound to tell you that something is “off”. Showers are a sort of hyper vigilant auditory escapade. And now, you’ve heard it. A sound to tell you that something is wrong. The water isn’t pulling correctly. Suddenly, it stops. Oh joy. You aim to clear the shampoo in your eyes enough to get out of the shower into a thankfully warm (this time) house to inspect what is happening and unplug the pump before you blow it up (no need to do that more than once in a lifetime, right J?).

11th: You realize that the pesky hose that you so dotingly checked on not 5 minutes before has wound itself into a whirlwind and is now gallantly facing upwards like a gymnast flipping their head back after sticking a landing. You are no longer taking in water. Funny thing about a shower, it requires water. You do your best to submerge it again, even placing a rock from your collection on top of it and eyes burning, head back into your bucket, once again avoiding the cold and the hot in order to take in the joy of the just right.

12th: A few more On and Offs later and you are finally done. You dry off in front of the stove to keep the chill away (the shower rests in between the woodstove and the door and at 20 below, even our big door can’t keep out a draft that would kill a plant placed in front of it in hours. It’s cold.

13th: Post The Chief’s shower, both dry-ish and tired galore it’s time to disassemble the shower until the next one. You get your stool, unhook the curtain and go to start the slow move of the shower catch towards the sink only to realize that a small portion of the curtain was out of the bucket and the floor is sopping wet. Thank goodness it’s currently unfinished. Everything is wet but nothing is ruined and hey, character is added. You clean it up and then together, you lift the bucket over the sink and do a slow pour of human soup into the sink so as not to overwhelm the French Drain. You place the bucket near the fire (though not too close) to dry, unhook the shower from the batteries and are ready to put down the stairs and call it a night when you realize that the shower curtain is still wet and shouldn’t be put away as such and so you leave up the stairs and stare at the dishes that call to you (though not enticingly enough) while you wait for a slightly drier curtain to allow passage up to the sleepy upstairs where your bed rests.

14th: Everything is put away and passage upstairs is granted.

Shower Day complete.

You’re safe upstairs in bed with your wet hair until, of course, nature calls for the last time today and you hurriedly dress and find your boots and socks, run outside and scurry back in afterwards just as quickly. There’s nothing like a crisp night and chilled hair to knock you out of sleep but still the goings on of your day bring you back to slumber. You’re worn out. It was a Shower Day.

With Summer here (at least it is on most days, except on the ones where it is freezing at night and dumps rain all day) we were beyond excited to get to shower once again outside. The water drains, there’s no bucket to haul around, the shower is roomier and it is outside so the view is beautiful and the reservoir outside is 55 gallons. It might as well be a hotel shower.

I put up the stairs for the last shower related time until Winter and took out the screws for the door shielding our pantry from shower splatter.

Putting it up originally in December after almost of month of bucket baths. We were stoked.

We took down the shower curtain and set it to dry in the sun to be put away later. The shower buckets were both scrubbed and then filled with Winter clothes to bid adieu to until it’s time again to bundle ourselves.

And then, we took the shower unit outside. The Chief screwed it into place, we connected the hoses, filled the 55 gallon drum, checked that it was working and then just as it was set-up, had to run off to something or another before we could try it.

No worries, there’s always tomorrow.

Wrong.

Tomorrow followed that night in which the temperatures dropped to below freezing. No big deal, right?

Wrong again.

You see, when we tested the shower that meant that water ran through all of the lines. Lines that when left full on a night below freezing will burst.

Who woulda thunk it? We hadn’t had a freezing night in well over a week.

I did not get the memo.

The next morning (totally unaware) I was pumped, I didn’t even need an “Eye of the Tiger”-esque song. I put on my magenta robe and hightailed it to the shower house. Today was the first of many Summertime Shower Days, the Annual Start. I was walking on air.

And then the winds changed and suddenly I was back to walking in the mud puddles beneath my feet because when I turned on the shower, water started bursting out of the water heater.

That doesn’t seem quite right.

The Chief came and verified that indeed, we were screwed.

I, having very much looked forward to Annual Summertime Shower Day Kickoff, was not giving up. The shower, on the other hand, was. Thankfully, our neighbors’ lines hadn’t burst and they graciously allowed me to come over. When you’re set for a shower, you’re getting a shower. I would have visited every house in the ‘hood until someone let me in, thankfully this robed lady didn’t have to go far. Thank goodness for great neighbors.

That day we ordered a replacement.

I went to Mail Days (Mondays and Thursdays, delivered by plane) stalking the package for the week, knowing full and well that it was unlikely to even arrive within the week.

But it’s not a bad place to wait. Check out that runway.

It did! It came on a Thursday (a friend called to tell us we had a large package and see if we needed them to bring it home for us if we were on foot or if we had a car that day to carry it ourselves) and we raced from work to pick it up and then raced home to set it up. After days of painting I was so excited to get in. Just as we finished assembling the last bits we got a call that dinner was waiting on us at a friends’ house. We had been so lost in the set-up that we hadn’t realized that it was almost 10pm.

The shower would have to wait for another day.

Finally Annual Summertime Shower Day Kickoff came. Covered in a week’s worth of paint and dust (the roads here are dirt and thus dust is the coating on everything. My hair spends the Summer feeling like crunchy cereal, except for on…Shower Day!) we were both excited to kick off the Summer Shower Season.

We robed up, toweled up, got our shower supplies and headed out. It was beautiful outside with the Summer light still bright at 10pm by the time we got in. Finally, the first shower of the season. Outside, no buckets, no spilling in the house, no freezing temperatures to crisp up our hair as we went back in. It was perfect.

So, when I went for my second shower of the season some days later I figured it would come about without a hiccup.

Wrong again (third time’s the charm, right?).

It was cold that night but I was a dusty mess and needed to recharge in a warm shower before hitting the sack. I went outside, gassed up the generator, started it, hooked up the batteries for the shower to the generator, hooked up the shower to the batteries, turned on the propane, turned on the shower and the water heater and boom! A beautiful shower…

for about 30 seconds.

Then, the sounds we all listen for and fear started up. Chugging and glugging and…then, nothing. No water.

It turns out that the hose wasn’t topsy-turvy, nor was the pump malfunctioning much. Nope, the problem really was no water. I had forgotten to refill the barrel. So, I got my boots on and shivered in my robe to go off and run the other generator to run the hose to the 55 gallon drum to fill it with water. About ten minutes later the drum was full and everything was working.

I had solicited The Chief’s help on this one and he warned that the water would likely be pretty cold since it had just come out of the barely above freezing well. Oh, a cold shower in the cold outside. This was just what I had ordered.

Well, lucky for me, the order got changed in the kitchen and the water came out hot enough to barely notice the cold temperatures outside.

Until it stopped again.

I knocked on the house to summon The Chief (again).

“What was the sound it was making?” See, I told you we all listen for sounds around here. I told him that the pump was making a fizzing almost bubbling sucking noise.

Time to unhook everything. I’m still learning to troubleshoot this puppy.

“You probably should get back in your robe, babe. This could take a while” he said, looking at me shivering.

There is nothing more dissatisfying after a semi-cold shower than putting on a semi-wet robe. Actually, standing in the cold, shivering and naked with wet hair is worse. Wet robe it is.

After finding a plugged up part of the line and having two false starts the shower was again up and running in ten minutes.

About an hour after robe-ing up and heading outside (and after maybe 15 minutes of actual showering time, which is luxurious, don’t get me wrong) I was done. The Chief took his run at it and came out successful with little to no interruptions (I guess I had worked out all of the kinks, the benefits of being a second showerer in the Summer versus standing in someone else’s water in the Winter if you don’t dump it first).

A year ago, I was taking showers and baths where the hardest thing that might happen was that the water heater would go out and have to be re-lit, which at the time felt like a serious setback. Now, taking a shower here feels like back in California. I essentially just get in and turn it on. Sure, there may be malfunctions but we have a well, we have a 55 gallon drum. Many people haul their water from up to 30 minutes away, some even walk the 30 minutes with 40 lb. buckets in backpacks. That seems near impossible to me. Then again, my showering situation would have seemed near impossible to me a year ago. I guess it’s all in the perspective. And in the necessity.

A year ago, this all would have seemed so foreign. A year ago it did seem so foreign. I basked in my showers not realizing how lucky I was. Now I see it. My perspective has shifted and I hope I never forget how amazing it is to have what we have.

Upon entering someone’s home here, it’s really common to check out their “systems”. How does their water situation work? Is it a dry cabin? Where do they haul water from? A well? How far down did they have to drill? What is their battery or solar situation like? Do they have a slop bucket or a drain? Everywhere we go everyone looks for tips and tricks of the trade. The other night we dropped off friends and admired their new shower system and French Drain in the kitchen. When we got home The Chief said “I hope I never forget how amazing it is to have our own running water in our house”. Luckily for him, he won’t have to. I’ll never forget how scary taking a slop bucket down the Ramp of Doom was in Summer and how happy I was that he installed a French Drain last Fall so that I didn’t have to tempt my fate on the Ramp of Doom with a slop bucket in Winter.

Our simple life may change. We may move on from a two burner so high up on the counter that I had to stand on my tippy toes to be able to cook to a full four burner with an oven.

Our old two burner, recently sent off to a new home at a friend’s house.

We may move from bucket showers to pump showers, heck someday we might even have a root cellar but I don’t plan on forgetting where we started: with coolers and specific placement of items at varying distances from a Winter entrance to keep them the right amount of cool. I won’t forget that we are lucky. Lucky to live the simple life that isn’t so simple at first and at second, is more than I could have hoped for.

And, I’m sure if we do forget this simple fact, Alaska will have a swift kick in the rear for us both as a reminder.

Scaling the Scaffolding: a Tale of Two Wobbly Knees

Next month marks a year since my life did a complete 180. I went from running water and local organic grocery stores to a “slop bucket” (a collection of water from the sink in the place of a draining sink, since there’s often little to no indoor plumbing here) and massive town runs. I went from everything I’ve ever known and every habit I’d created to a complete new way. But some things remain the same, no matter how far we travel, no matter how far we’ve come. Some things remain.

When I first arrived last June one of my first outings was to go ice climbing. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d ever even heard of ice climbing. It sounded way out of my element and way out of my comfort zone.

The girlfriend I was staying with when I first got here (when I first thought I’d only be here for 17 days and then off to who knows where) runs a guiding service in the area. She had to work that day but knew some of the guides were going ice climbing.

“You should go along” she encouraged. I was newly adjusting to my surroundings. Getting used to peeing outside, still afraid of bears around every corner, still getting used to the light at night and the ever-changing weather throughout the day. Rainstorms followed by blazing sun to suddenly overcast and frigid. My backpack was essentially my mobile closet with everything from a toothbrush to bug spray to a fresh pair of socks. Thinking ahead was key. It was all new.

So when I heard about the ice climbing expedition, I was uncertain. I didn’t know the guides, didn’t know the gear and I didn’t totally understand the endeavor which in the end was good because it allowed me not to think far enough to realize that I would be climbing up into the air when I have a fear of heights.

I have a fear of heights.

It was something that I had all but forgotten about myself until I got here. Occasionally, back in California, there would be a beautiful sunset which we would climb up on the roof of my house and watch. I would gingerly climb the ladder, slowly placing each footstep, holding on for dear life as I scaled the 6 feet that would take me up to the roof that looked down at least 30 feet to the ground below. I would feel my stomach drop, my knees start to go wobbly and my feet begin to numb before I’d even ascended halfway. Up on the top, I’d find my nook and cranny myself into it until I had to move again in order to come down (a time which I hoped would come as soon as possible, but you know, the sun is on her own schedule. Are we there yet?). The thing was, those times were rare. I rarely scared myself, rarely had to step out of comfort, and so, until those moments, far and few between, I started to forget my fear of heights. How convenient.

But here I was, slowly realizing that the sport ice climbing contains the word ‘climbing’ which meant I was going up. Gulp. There was really no turning back. Looking back as we hiked I could barely see the town and had little to no faith of my ability to navigate the rocky terrain back to the home I had just arrived at a day or so before. And so I set out to conquer my fears, while simultaneously pretending they didn’t exist.

We hiked out to the glacier (a glacier!) over rickety bridges protecting us from the freezing water of the rushing creeks below and up and down slippery rock which was a far enough distance that by the time we got there everyone was ready for a snack. It was miles and clothing changes away, we were suddenly on exposed ice. Just the hike alone was more than I had done in recent months due to a recurring neck injury and carrying a big pack wasn’t a daily endeavor, to say the least. I worried as I realized that I already felt tired. Nevermind, snack time. With backpacks full of boots and harnesses and snacks galore, we all sat down to eat and evaluate the situation. Where would we drill into? Which were the hardest and easiest routes to climb? Clearly, I had a lot of input into these questions.

I was totally and completely over my head, but they were patient and taught me what to do. And then, just like that, the line was open. One guide offered me the option of more explanation or to just go. I chose the latter. I could feel the nervousness building and needed to beat it out of the gate. And so, with a relative hang of the idea (use these picks and your boots to climb up this enormous ice wall, get to the top and bouce-glide down) I clipped in and…

I got to the top. My knees were shaking, I couldn’t find my toe holds (it didn’t even compute one bit how a 1/4″ of metal was supposed to hold me into this ice face) and my forearms were screaming from clawing my way up with the axe but I kept going and I made it.

At the bottom, I looked up and realized I had scaled a height probably 5 times bigger than that 6 foot ladder. I was on Cloud 9. I patted myself on the back (after I’d dropped the ice pick) and hugged my girlfriend’s pup whom had followed me out for the day and had supervised my every move.

Buddha, if I fall, will you catch me?

Fear of heights be gone. Onto the next challenge. Right?

Back in California this past Fall my Mom and I celebrated our birthdays (we are a week apart. Two Scorpios. You can guess how my teenage years went. Sorry for being a terror, Ma). For mine, we took a walk. For hers, she chose a craggy cliff side stroll. There were ravines and hills to climb up along rocky cliffs. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park (although it was gorgeous) and for the first time in a long time, I saw her fear of heights in action.

Growing up, I remember us both having fear. Now, a seasoned ice climber with one day of climbing behind me, I was coaxing her past the hairy junctions, holding her hand and congratulating her on the other side. She did it. She too conquered the fear.

We were free. Right?

As you might have guessed, nope. Wrong.

This is how I found out: in this Shoulder Season of Spring before Summer, work is very much of the pick-up variety until everyone’s full-time jobs start. I was lucky enough to pick-up work from a local restaurant that my neighbor and friends are starting. The task? Painting.

Little T punching the clock

The first day we arrived (The Chief, Cinda and I. The Chief had done construction for them throughout the Winter. Days below ten degrees finally became their cut-off point (meaning work would be called off) but this was only after working multiple days in below zero temps, even 20 below one day. I barely left the house on those days. They worked outside. Total badass status/crazy, if you ask me)) our neighbor was giving us the gist of the painting process:

“There will be some real basic on the ground stuff, some 6 foot ladder stuff and then the real Daredevil parts up high”.

Ha! He’s cute. Daredevil? Look past me my friend, I thought to myself.

And then I heard myself. That standard. Height = No Can Do, in my book. But wait, I thought we had gotten past this, right?

I pushed it out of my mind as I watched The Chief scale the first wall. I had work to do on the ground, only so many people (ideally one) can be on a ladder at once and I was needed on the ground below him.

We are three weeks out of The Chief’s surgery. Ideally, he lifts nothing and does not exert himself. Since the day after his surgery he has had to break the rules in order for our house to keep running, but we’ve tried to keep it mellow-ish, despite his distaste for not doing the heavy lifting.

In comes Summer.

The day we started was the day Summer arrived and with it temperatures of 80 degrees plus.

Up on a ladder, up on a porch, all day on the sunny side of the building with his neck crooked upwards is not the ideal healing and resting situation. And so, I thought to myself as I felt my feet go numb just looking at him way up in the air, if there’s more ladder work, I will try to help take some of the brunt so it’s not just him and his sinuses up there.

Well, it turns out that I had to make good on that offer because there was a whole building to paint. A huge building.

Day two, still hotter than any of us expected and…it’s time for more ladder work.

“Babe, I’ll just do the ladder work today” I said, as simply as I might offer to divvy up the chores. You do the dishes while I haul water. I’ll pump gas while you water the plants. Simple. A trade-off. There’s work for all and it simply needs to be claimed.

I immediately regretted my decision.

Three of us (meaning The Chief and our neighbor with me bouncing around trying to find a place to be of use) moved a 24 plus foot extension ladder from one side of the building to the one in question. We propped it up and adjusted it in the rocky ground it stood upon. We were painting the second level of the building which had a hip roof (just what it sounds like, a roof below the “real” roof. If the roof of the building is the shoulders, the hip roof is, well, the hips) for the ladder to rest upon. Originally, we had discussed rigging up a harness situation in which one person would lean out of the windows of the second story and paint while tied in. As soon as we moved the ladder into place and The Chief all but ran up to the top without so much as a wobble and called it good, I realized that the harness idea was, to be punny, out the window.

Grrrrrrrrreat!

Just then, a few other friends showed up. Everyone stopped working to greet them and congregated around the ladder.

My ladder. The ladder I was going to have to climb up. That was as far as I had gotten. I knew I had to climb up it. It didn’t even occur to me that simply climbing up it might not be as easy as The Chief had shown it to be. He “No-Handsed” it.

Growing up watching my favorites in the Olympics like Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan it had never occurred to me that what they were doing was all that hard. I mean, it’s teachable, right? Needless to say, the first time I went ice skating and nearly broke my rear trying to do a jump (because that is what everyone is able to do their first time on the ice) I had the hard realization that simply because something looks easy doesn’t mean that it is and if it’s difficult and someone makes it look easy, well then it might be even more difficult than anticipated. Add fear to that equation and well, you’ve got my second day of painting.

I could feel the fear mounting (where was this even coming from? I had conquered this, right?) as we stood talking, I knew that my knees and feet wouldn’t respond much longer if I just kept looking at the feat ahead of me instead of starting it. So, with everyone there, I grabbed my paint bucket and brush and started climbing. The Chief had scampered up without holding on, I got one rung up before I quickly realized that he must be part Ninja, part Panther, as I fell forward and clung to the rungs for dear life. I started up the ladder, paint brush and bucket in one hand, the other free, both sweaty. Thankfully, the crowd on the ground took this as a cue that the break was over and started to disperse, a bit. This was not a moment for spectators, I looked like a newborn fawn taking its first steps. I was awkward.

A good three minutes later I was up the ladder (something that had taken The Chief all of about 7 seconds to complete, dang Kristi Yamaguchi look-alike).

Now what?

When in doubt, sit down.

I balanced one foot at the top rung and the other one rung below it and huddled to get my bearings. Bearings: well, I’m up really high. I have now become one-handed because I have nowhere to place my paint and essentially I am no handed because I need to use the other to paint.

Typically, I have pretty excellent balance, but try to balance a bucket full of fear and you get a spinning coin about to fall. Heads or tails? I decided that one, I was not going to fall and two, that I was going to at least get a few slats painted before I called it quits.

It turns out that even at full extension, my dual rung stance didn’t get me high enough to paint the highest slats. I would need The Chief’s help after all. So much for being his savior. This, I immediately saw as my out. I mean, does it really make sense to trade-off and on so that I can paint 2/3 of the top portion only to have to run and get The Chief for every last 1/3 before we (they) move the ladder again? Not at all.

This gave me the push I needed to finish my first section. My thighs were shaky from my balancing straddle (and from fear) and my positioning was awkward but I was able to power through and slowly make my way to the ground. Ah, sweet Earth. I’m never leaving you again.

Fear of heights realized, not welcomed, but acknowledged.

I rounded the corner to find The Chief.

“Hey babe, you ready to switch?”

Mmmhmmm.

I stalled telling him that we were switching for good. I went over to the wall he was working on (from the ground) and picked up his brush to work while he finished the last third on my area.

My area.

I had taken it on and yes, I was scared but there was something holding me back from completely abandoning the endeavor. Could I just give in so quickly? My thighs felt rested. He finished and came back over to get help moving the ladder. We summoned our neighbor for help as well.

“Babe, does this look good? Can you reach both sides from this?” He asked as they tried to place the ladder to my liking.

I couldn’t answer because if I did I would have said “Put it where you like, dear. You’re the one who will be doing the painting here” but I hadn’t fully committed to quitting the project just yet, so he got a silent reply. He thought I didn’t understand the question and so a few reconstructions of the quandary later I was finally able to answer.

“Looks good”.

As soon as our neighbor left I was able to explain my tongue tied-ness.

“I’m scared. It’s really high. It’s like…it’s really high”.

“Oh, ok. Do you want me to do it?”

I did, of course I did.

But I am stubborn and made myself try again.

We finished another section. I was starting to get my sea legs about me. I was feeling more confident. I still moved like an awkward crab but I felt a bit more at ease.

For the next ladder move the cat who had gotten my tongue had left to find someone elses. My tongue was working and I directed them where to place it.

No sooner had a climbed up (this time with no hands until at least the fourth rung. Progress.) and gotten situated did I start to feel just the slightest shift.

I froze.

Was the ladder moving? No, it couldn’t be, I said to myself as I realized that this last move I hadn’t checked the footing holds in their rocky setting.

It turns out, it could be.

Just as soon as I had started planning my escape route the ladder started moving again, a good consistent very slow slide off the roof. There was no time for planning, I was falling. Simultaneously, another stopper by stopped on by. I didn’t know him. I pointed at him. “You, come here. Now. This ladder is sliding”.

He ran over and didn’t move until I was safely on the ground.

“Your footing is uneven in this rock”.

Yes, thank you.

I hightailed it to The Chief and told the story of my near doom.

Clearly seeing I was shaken, he offered again to take over.

And so I let him…

for about five minutes.

I had walked over to his previous station and spent four minutes staring at the wall before I ran back over to the hip roof happenings.

“I want to do it”.

Patiently, he climbed back down. He checked to make sure I was actually comfortable with it and that I wasn’t purely fueled by pride (ugh, he knows me too well) and then confident in my responses he gave me some pointers. I watched him run up the ladder and show me footing options and window grips to be able to hang from the window to gain reach and stability.

Perfect. Thank you. Now go away so I can look awkward as I try to replicate what you just did.

I did not replicate it. It did not look the same, I’ll tell you that right now.

But, I did get back up there and together, switching on and off we nearly finished the whole side of the building that day.

The next day I was gung-ho to start and finish the last section. My thighs were sore from bracing myself and my feet hurt from trying to grab onto any sort of traction I could find (where’s the super power of Gecko hands and feet when you need them, right B?). I was done. The last of the “Daredevil Work” would be completed and I could go back to the safety of the ground feeling like I had made headway with my fear of heights.

One last section to freedom

Heading down for the last time

Well, Alaska (and years of planning and building blueprints) decided differently. You see, the building, no surprise here, is a box and thus, has four sides, all of them two stories tall. The “Daredevil Work” was only halfway through.

Oh joy.

Scaffolding.

I feel like my only interaction with scaffolding is the famous photo of men on a lunch break in New York in 1932. You know the one.

This isn’t even scaffolding but it’s my idea of what being on scaffolding is like (if you are as brazenly comfortable as these gents are on it).

And so, lunch pail (actually, paint pail) in hand I ascended, climbing the big ladder again as it wobbled the scaffolding. I reached the top and immediately sat down (it really is the move, I’m telling you) to asses my surroundings. The Chief came up to show me how to move myself and the scaffolding up.

It’s going higher?

The best part about adjusting scaffolding is that, if you’re alone, it has to be done unevenly. You adjust one side two to three moves up by sticking your foot in a metal apparatus and (in my case) putting all your weight on it to get it to move down which raises that side up. Then, you walk uphill on the wobbly boards to the other side and do the same thing. Back and forth feeling like you’re surfing, raising up a bit more each time until you’re where you need to be. You also do all of this while trying not to spill your paint bucket everywhere or fall off.

Three separate sets of adjustments and hours later and my section was done. By the end of it I was feeling more confident again. The Chief reminded me that it takes practice, that he’d been doing this for years and to have patience. Patience, schmatience, he’s part Ninja. But he’s also a correct Ninja because by the end of the day as the winds picked up and I gained a partner in crime as we moved the scaffolding to the next section and we bounced one another around with our each and every move I found myself swaying with the boards instead of resisting them (while resisting my urge to sit down) and finding new ways to reach a little farther or lean a little more. Efficiency up, fear down. But not completely gone.

It turns out that a year ago being strapped into a harness that was attached to a rope that was bolted into ice (does that seem secure to you? Me neither but they are the professionals and it was amazing) that was held on the other end by an extremely confident crew is a little different from climbing up a ladder solo and balancing while painting on its upper rungs. I had not conquered my fear but I had faced it again, this time more seriously and man, was it determined to stay put but it wasn’t going to.

Without the stretch out of the norm how are we to remember our fears? Even more, how are we to challenge them? And how are we to start the journey past them? I had been living in the safety of a world I constructed where I knew what would come next and how to avoid it if it scared me. Here, there’s still the option to say “no” but the situations come upon me faster than I know how to plan for and thank goodness for that.

My scheduling of my safety bubble has been interrupted and fear has been a frequent visitor but even though uninvited, fear is a welcome surprise to remind me of the things we carry with us no matter where we go. Before I came here, I put a reminder in my phone to do something every day that scares me or simply puts me out of my comfort zone, be it trying a new class or getting lost and finding my way back. I had to search out those things. Now, they come to me. Oh, joy. But really, it is a joy.

I have a fear of heights and I now remember that but I will keep challenging it until it turns into “I have a slight fear”. Perhaps it will never turn into “I had a fear” but I’m sure there will be enough situations here to make it come to be if it is at all possible.

Until then, I’ll keep the reminder of my Mom conquering her fears, step by step, one foot in front of the other and of my Ninja boyfriend, making the hard look so easy that I (somewhat) fearlessly attempt it.

Falling in Love Naked with Cauliflower Armpits

From the time I started wearing makeup (an issue of high contention and many winy, though I thought well thought out, arguments between my mother and I) I never stopped.

I never wore all that much makeup, the whole eyeshadow thing was (and is) lost on me and I liked (and like) to see the tone of my skin, not a mirage of powders but despite it’s typically minimal presence, I still wore it everyday.

Going to the gym? Mascara and blush.

The beach? The same.

Going out? A cat eye and maybe some red lips was my staple.

And why not? Since the beginning of people, we have sought to adorn ourselves through piercings and tattoos, jewelry and clothing and hairstyles and of course makeup. And truly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I have a strong affinity for shiny things and gold is my favorite color.

Needless to say, I love adornment.

But sometimes it goes too far. Sometimes, the adornment becomes the identity instead of an accessory. At some point, the thing I had fought to have control over doing had control over me.

I used to watch my makeup free friends in awe, wishing that I too could go without but feeling too insecure to do so. They looked so beautiful, so natural. I longed for that freedom but felt that

I was different

I was required to wear makeup

I just didn’t look quite right without it.

From pool parties to long weekends with friends, there I was, with mascara at a minimum, wishing it were otherwise but feeling as if it just could not be so. If a friend stopped by and I was just out of the shower I would panic and try to “do something” to rectify the situation before they saw me.

I remember the first time a friend’s mom described me as “smart” first instead of a physical descriptor and I realized that this was how I wanted to be seen and interpreted. I wanted my insides to matter the most but I didn’t know how to shift focus. I felt trapped.

But then, I turned my whole world upside down. I left my home, moved in with a wonderful girlfriend and started planning for Alaska.

She questioned: “So, are you going to wear makeup in Alaska?” She being one of those beautiful friends that was almost always sans makeup.

It had been on my mind. It was almost as if she had heard me thinking it. What am I going to do? No one wears makeup there it seems. And who really cares if I stick out but I already felt like the inexperienced city girl (despite coming from the country) with “high maintenance” written across my forehead and “priss” written on my back. When I asked if I should bring a hair dryer or if my girlfriend in Alaska had one she giggled and replied “Julia, if I plugged a hair dryer in at my house my whole inverter would probably blow up”.

Oh.

I didn’t totally get what an inverter was but I did get that I was entering a totally new ballgame.

Back to nature.

And I was excited.

I wanted so badly to be free of feeling required to look a certain way but the voices of insecurity whispered “You’re not like the others. You don’t get to. You’re not enough”.

Pretty damn rude, if you ask me.

I responded to my girlfriend’s quandry: “I don’t want to wear makeup, but I’m feeling nervous”.

“Well, why don’t you start here and then you’ll be used to it once you arrive in Alaska? Plus, your skin could probably use a break, ya know? You could just spend the whole Summer letting it breath and rejuvenate itself”. It sounded like heaven. Except…

Umm, start at home, where I know everyone? No thanks. People will be shocked at how different I look.

Feeling my utter resistance to her idea told me that I needed to do it. I was afraid. So I forced myself.

Thank goodness.

It turns out that people weren’t shocked. People didn’t gawk or ask if I was sick (my personal favorite of the comments I’d gotten once from a previous stint not wearing makeup for one day at the office. It was going to be a week. I quickly reconsidered). In fact, I actually felt that I got more compliments with a naked face than with an adorned one but that is not what matters.

What truly matters was how I felt. I felt free. In the following weeks, I would curl my eyelashes or add a little blush for fun (and I still sometimes do, it seems that my cheeks, no matter if I’ve run a 10k or snowmachined up a mountain, do not blush, no way, no how and I really like a rosy cheek, so there you have it) but it wasn’t part of my duties for the day. It didn’t feel like a habit or requirement in order to be able to step outside.

Makeup felt, once again, like adornment. The freedom to add or subtract but in the end to be happy with the canvas I started with.

I took this new freedom with me to Alaska.

When I met someone, it felt like they were truly meeting me, not a constructed image of me.

Then I met The Chief. The night I really fell for The Chief (who am I kidding, I was hooked from “Hello”) was the first day I went Packrafting. We had all gotten drenched down to our undies, I had dirt all over my face and half dry-half wet braided/tangled locks for hair.

I mean, I’d certainly looked better before.

It didn’t matter.

To him I was me, the only me he’d ever known. He didn’t know the makeuped me of the past, just the dirty faced lady high on her first rafting adventure in front of him and he liked her. The feeling was mutual.

And so we fell in love naked faced. Stripped down to who we were and who we are. It’s a totally different experience than I’ve ever had before. I think every makeup wearer (who has grown uncomfortable with going naked) knows the stress of meeting someone while all gussied up only to wait anxiously for the first time they will see you without makeup. What a terrible reality to feel less than without adornment, but I used to feel that way.

There’s an Amy Schumer video that I think perfectly sums up the predicament, and in perfect Amy fashion she pokes fun at how ridiculous we can be as a society. I’m not saying that makeup is bad, just that if it makes you feel bad about yourself, then maybe it’s time to renegotiate your relationship terms. I certainly needed to.

Now, in the last year I can count on my hands the times I’ve worn mascara or lipstick. It’s a world away from where I used to be. Now, I look forward to fancier occasions (which might just mean randomly being in a bar on a Tuesday in Anchorage) where I wear makeup. It feels new and exciting, like a real event. But, by the next morning I’m ready to go back to bare and The Chief is always ready for me to get back to the real me. What a different place.

But, don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that I don’t get a little bored sometimes. Living in the woods means there’s rarely a lipstick occasion (though, by all means, I could just go ahead and make it a Lipstick Saturday anytime) and so sometimes I try little beauty methods on my own. Julia’s Salon opens for business (Appointment Only and you might want to Yelp some other options. She’s new).

I go through phases of light and dark with my eyebrows, dying them dark and then letting them lighten. I’ve even done the same with my eyelashes. It’s fun to see how the face changes just from a little shift and it keeps me entertained trying out new techniques. It’s also interesting to see myself get attached to one way or the other and feel less than when things are different. Insecurity trying still to creep in. What a creep.

Starting at the top going down: Light Bright; An homage to Charlie Chaplin (dyeing the brows); Lash Tint Imprint; Darker for Now

Light bright

An homage to Charlie Chaplin (dyeing brows)

Eyelash Tint Imprints

And then the fade begins…

So, with all these DIY beauty attempts I thought I’d try a new one. I thought to myself, hey, everyone out here seems to wax their legs and armpits. Maybe I’ll try that! Julia’s Salon opens again!

Good idea?

It seemed it (in retrospect, no). Our shower was on the fritz and shaving takes up extra water in my little birdbath bathing sessions so I thought, hey, why not? Plus, I’d done it before with a girlfriend this Winter so I was sure I could figure it out on my own. What could go wrong?

Well, it turns out that I’m allergic to the particular wax I used.

That’s one option that could go wrong.

Another is that my reaction could cause my armpits to swell and bubble up like the cauliflowered ear of a boxer.

Sounds glorious, eh?

So far, three days in, my armpits (could we perhaps come up with a more glamorous name? Even Armcaves or Armjunction feels better. Pit? Not shiny) are just as angry as Day One. They’ve carved three tally marks on the wall like prisoners and are threatening to fill the whole wall with tallies if I ever go near that wax again. Sheeesh! I was just trying to do as the locals do.

Thankfully, a few weeks ago, a friend up the road gave us two aloe plants which The Chief remembered as we looked around the med kit for relief. He broke the plant and applied it to the angry armcaves. One could almost hear them sizzling as the cooling liquid touched their hot surface.

Grossed out enough?

Yea, me too.

I can tell you that never has a beauty regime felt less important. In an effort to try something new I put myself out of commission, or at least made things much more painful to do. From hauling water to my new attempts at running, to folding laundry and carrying things into the loft my days have been filled with yips and squeals at the parting of the cracking skin while my nights have been interrupted with itching bumps that awaken me from sleep.

All this for a little hair removal? Geez, I’ll keep it. Or actually, I’ll just do what I’ve always done because now I’ve found out what works for me: shaving please (preferably with a man’s razor. What, do they think that women can’t handle a sleek six blades? They are way better, ladies, trust me. Or actually, just do whatever is working for you). I’d much prefer to spend a few more minutes in my birdbath than an afternoon (or at this point probably about a week) in sticky pain.

Even when one is loved barefaced naked, it’s fun to switch things up, to try a new beauty regime. And even while loved barefaced naked by another (and by myself as well) I still sometimes feel the whispers of insecurity telling me that I need more than what I woke up with.

But in times of cauliflower armcaves, that all feels a bit trite. Not being able to run around the wilderness because I wanted silky armcaves? I’d rather have unruly armcaves than be debilitated by changing them. I’d rather have a dirty face because of an adventure than a made up one any day. I’d rather be with a man who fell for me naked and I’d rather fall for myself naked because there is so much that is so much more important than how we look. To you, it may seem obvious, maybe something you’ve never even questioned. But after years of protecting myself against ridicule from the outside sometimes I need a reminder that the self is not just what is seen and hopefully it is so much more.

Thankfully, the reminders here are plentiful and the “so much more” is something I will always find more ways to work on out here. The vastness of this place calls attention to what really matters and to how much I have to learn.

From the big to the small.

From harvesting wild plants to make medicines to creating cleaning substitutes when I’ve run out of store bought ones to attempting canning solo for the first time (and stopping pre-seal), this place is afire with learning and perspective and reminders:

A bonfire with friends where everyone is lit by the glow of the flames means no one can tell (or cares) if you’ve dyed your eyebrows but they can tell if you’re happy.

A walk by the riverside where treasures of copper and walking sticks and skulls present themselves to you speaks to the magic I’d miss if focusing elsewhere.

Seeing my first sprouts grow that I was so sure I would mess up.

The reminders are everywhere.

These are the joys that take me out of myself, out of what I used to think important and sometimes still get lost in and transport me towards the person I want to become.

Cheers to the journey. Dolled up or stripped down it’s all still happening. Let’s try not miss it on account of CauliCaves*.

*No, that’s not the medical term but damned if it’s not the perfect descriptor.

When is Trash Day?

It took me a while after I first arrived here to realize that Trash Day doesn’t exist here. There isn’t one night a week that you’ll run into your neighbors as you line up your cans or watch them in the morning cursing their forgetfulness as they hurriedly place them in a row. There are trash cans everywhere. Trash and recycling duties are performed by the Park Service but they are not for local use. Of course you may occasionally use the cans for typical use (that ice cream wrapper has to go somewhere) but bringing your household trash to the garbage cans? That’s a No-No.

So, then what?

By the time I realized I was living with The Chief (the plans of a building a platform finally put to rest and my boots settled comfortably in what was now Our house) I realized I had a lot to learn about how the house actually worked. As a visitor you (or at least I) kind of gloss over certain details. You toss something in the recycling at someone’s house and then for you the process is done. Until suddenly you live there.

And so I set in to learn just how everything magically went Poof! and disappeared.

Well, I’ll tell you right now it is not magic.

It is, on the other hand, a lot of odoriferous work.

But that’s fine with me. I grew up amongst pungent projects. My favorite household chore as a kid was going to the dump. I loved the sounds and the big machines, wearing “dump clothes” and tough leather gloves. I loved the seagulls and the utter vastness of the pit. It was powerful to me in some way, like looking out on the ocean from a clifftop. Back then you got to drive straight up to the actual garbage pit.

For some reason they stopped allowing people to do that. Sometimes I wonder if it had anything to do with this little girl who fell down into the pit one day because her father threw the rotten 2x4s they were heave-ho-ing into the pit on the count of “3” instead of “Throw” (you know “1, 2, 3, Throw!” vs. “1,2,3!”. It’s the ultimate debate) and she flew into the pit along with the boards. Down, down, down into the vast array of who knows what just as one of the big garbage chewing machines (this may not actually be their technical name) was coming by. The driver couldn’t see her and he was approaching fast. Scared and a bit discombobulated, the little girl started to try to move but she only sunk into the mounds of garbage around her. Thankfully, just then a random dump-goer ran in and carried her out and both escaped unscathed.

Oh yeah, that little girl was me. I spent the rest of the day showering the stink of adventure off of me.

So, needless to say, I’m familiar with taking care of my own garbage and used to the odors it can produce. Or so I thought.

The thing is, I’d grown soft. After years of Tuesday Trash Days and Monday night meet and greets with the neighbors over the lining up of our refuse, where the trash went and how it got there weighed less heavily on my mind and depended on very little more than a short walk from me.

So, fast forward to moving to the woods which obviously (obvious now, not so much at first) does not have Trash Day. What does one do?

One of the biggest issues with trash here is storage until it reaches the next step of transferring it to town or if it’s burnable, burning it. It makes sense, of course, but if I had been without The Chief, I can see myself piling trash outside and coming home one night to a bear dinner party that I was not invited to join or disrupt. Trash needs to be secured. So we have 55 gallon drums that we’ve purchased to store trash until we can take it into Town.

For now.

In the Summer, it may be another story. You see, the bears can undo the drum latch. I can barely undo the latch with two hands and two thumbs and a pair of work gloves. It’s a challenge every time but a bear? He can pop that thing open like Popeye and his spinach. So, we will have to test it and see how it fares.

Hopefully it will fare better than the freezer last summer. Which brings us to the next issue: getting rid of bigger items. It’s been said many times around here that this is often the final resting place for the things that find their way to the woods. From cars to tank tops to snow machine seats and 4-wheeler tires, things are used and re-used and re-purposed till the end. But when something no longer works and cannot be fixed, then what? Start a junkyard?

It feels strange to see “junk” in the middle of the woods but getting items out is always harder than getting them in (and getting them in is often darn hard. Need building supplies for your house? Unless you want to/have time to do 50 truck loads 8 hours each way yourself, you’re going to need some help from freighters). So last year when a hungry bear came to our house every night and made meat popsicle out of our stored food and broke the freezer, what was there to do? The freezer no longer worked, the food was ruined. Ah, clean up, you can be such a disgusting charade. And now we had a freezer on our hands that didn’t work and was broken past repair. The plan? Haul it out. Someday.

The next issue of life in the woods is recycling. Alaska has a pretty detailed recycling system. All items must be clean and sorted appropriately (there’s seemingly one billion different plastics classifications), bottle caps removed and non-recyclable items not included (even if they say they are – Costco apple cases? They seem to be recyclable. They aren’t accepted in Alaska. Surprise!). We have a recycling bin inside the house that then gets bagged up, taken outside and then eventually sorted into many different bags. However, the sorting process doesn’t always/can’t always happen immediately (sorting recycling at 20 below zero just doesn’t always appeal to the senses) and sometimes on the way into town there just isn’t room enough to take loads of recycling. So, it starts to pile up. Since we are heading into town again, I decided to tackle the recycling. It’s contents range from Fall until now so needless to say, the job was sizeable. Thankfully, it being Spring and all, a lot of the ground had melted around the bags but some were still frozen in and had to be shoveled out.

About 20 bags and countless amounts of old beer spilled on me later, we were sorted.

Seeing dirt for the first time in months

We started to debate how much we would actually be able to bring with us. With a barrel for fuel and all that recycling plus 4 bags of trash, things were getting a little crowded, and we still had that old freezer plus countless other random items that needed to be retired for good. We settled on putting in as much as we could and leaving a day early in order to complete all the dump and recycling runs. But, we ran into a much better option. A friend had started a trash and recycling business last year and was taking a trip out, his first big run of the season.

Way to load it, Mr. E. By the end of our drop-off and few other neighbors, this thing (plus the attached flatbed plus a horse trailer) will be chock full of recycling and trash

It’s not just for ponies anymore.

Residential services were available and so we called to see what he could take. We hustled all day to get as much gone as possible which meant cleaning out another freezer that had stored the rotten meat from the bear encounters with the other freezer last year. A lot of gagging and bagging up meat turned unrecognizable and we would finally put to rest the bear debacle that started 8 months ago.

Don’t puke, my love.

That’s how things go out here, in stages and never as fast as one would hope. But now we could see the end in sight. We piled the truck high with our first load and then our second and slowly but surely improvements to the property were becoming noticeable.

The Chief had done a day of falling trees for our friend who was running the trash business and so the beauty of the barter and trade system that flourishes out here was put into play. Just for us to haul the freezer to the dump would have been $100, plus gas and time, plus it would have taken space away from hauling in other items. Our friend was able to do it for much less and all in all, credit from a day of work from The Chief paid for a day of hauling trash and recycling from our friend. Any time something out here is made just that much easier, it means the world. Saving a day at the dump (even though I still do love going) means that we can spend that getting the property even more ready for Spring before we leave, for as the snow melts it’s amazing the treasures (and trash) I’ve found.

The dog we are dog-sitting (he’s our nephew) came in one night biting at his paw. He allowed me to look at it and I yanked out the molar below.

The next day, as the snow had melted exponentially more, he came up with the whole half bear jaw and some claws.

Thankfully now there’s a way to get rid of the trash we find amongst the treasures on a regular basis and a way to avoid potentially creating bear amusement parks in our backyards. It makes the “hard” life we live just that much easier so we can focus on other Spring things like getting the garden ready and switching out Winter boots for Summer boots.

Cheers to Spring time (I’ve finally given in) and all that it unearths.

Ah, and a brief sidenote: The Chief is named The Chief over here at Beneath the Borealis not because we are ensnared in some hierarchical patriarchical relationship where he reigns supreme but because of his profession. He is the Fire Chief of the town and thus, The Chief seemed a sweet moniker for the man I spend my days with. So no, don’t worry, I’m not bowing before him or asking for permission to sneeze. We are partners. Different in our talents and equal in our value.

Lumberjane and the Not So Easy, “Easy Tree”

I did it.

I took down my first tree.

When we arrived in December the idea of logging was very Disney-esque to me. I pictured a bearded Lumberjack in plaid yelling “Timber!” as a gargantuan tree fell, crushing smaller trees on its way down and sending nature all around it off in a hurry. Birds chirping, squirrels chattering, the forest awakened by the sudden change. And then, the Lumberjack would throw the logs over his shoulder and whistle as he walked away to a warm cabin not so far away.

In all honesty, this wasn’t so far from reality, but it definitely brushed over a few major aspects.

First, apparently, we don’t yell “Timber!” anymore. This was a real shocker but I believe I can get the momentum going to bring that one back.

Second, there’s a lot more involved in falling a tree than chopping or sawing through it. First, there’s the picking out of the tree. Here, we try to always avoid green wood (trees that are still alive), at least for firewood. That way it doesn’t have to cure as long before you can use it and you’re not killing a tree without reason. Finding a tree that is dead but “healthy” (meaning not rotten or taken over by beetles, etc.) is a good challenge especially when coupled with the reality that you’ll need to find a tree that won’t get “hung up” on (fall into) other trees. You spend a lot of time evaluating the lean and shape of the tree and its surroundings.

Then, there is cutting it down.

There are three cuts. The first is a level (as perfectly level as possible which is difficult when you are holding a saw that is too heavy for you) cut about a third of the way through the tree. The second completes The Face Cut and angles down into the tree from above the first cut and meets up at its edge. It creates a cut-out like a big slice of watermelon. This cut is awkward and hard. All sides have to line up. All the while, you are watching your tree, watching for movement, checking your lines to make sure the cut is accurate, level and correctly angled. Then, you make your Back Cut. It starts at the back of the tree, a bit above the level of the first cut (if you’re actually looking to cut down a tree please take don’t use this as a manual – there are precise measurements for how much above the Face Cut one goes and information on angles and techniques a plenty, but not here my friend). It too must be level but you need to be able to trust your saw skills enough to not have to watch yourself cutting and instead be able to affix your eyes to your tree. Is it moving? Wobbling? Does it look like it’s going to fall where you want it? If not, it’s time for some quick moves. Oh, and speaking of quick moves you always need to be aware of your “out”. Playing If the Tree Falls This Way, I Go This Way isn’t just a game for fun. You need to look at your surroundings and see or create (cut down nearby branches, etc.) your escape for if something goes wrong.

Third, you don’t always wear plaid and the forest animals (at least in the Winter) are tucked away sleeping, not jabbering about your falling technique. It’s relatively quiet (well, at least until the chainsaw runs).

Fourth, there’s a lot of clean-up involved and a day of tree falling is always accompanied by a lot of brush work which thankfully normally leads to the day ending with a bonfire. Oh, and hauling the logs is not done on the shoulder, double barreled. It takes smart angles and momentum (and sometimes two people) to get the lengths into the sled. After which you drive them with your snow machine to your drop spot (ours is in front of our woodshed) where you tip the sled over to empty it and head back for another load again and again until the logs are all moved and you’ve finished hauling brush and brush and brush.

Fifth, safety is cool. Ear protection and eyewear, though both may make you look like a bug (you’ll see what I mean in a later picture) both are protecting some serious assets. Wear them.

So clearly, Disney had led me slightly astray (insert little girl gasping sound!). I had a lot to learn when it came to cutting down a tree. From picking one out to cutting techniques to safety precautions, the more logging we did the more I realized how little I knew and my goal of cutting down a tree before Winter’s end started to seem like a pipe dream.

Besides, I was really good at running the clean-up effort. I could knock off branches with the swish of an axe and had learned to maneuver logs that were almost as tall as me into the logging sled. I had made progress. So what if I didn’t take one down on my own? I mean, if you’re there to lick the spoon and clean up the mess, it’s basically like you baked the cookies, right?

Not really. But with Winter coming to an end and logging becoming more difficult in the shallowing snow, I had kind of resigned myself to waiting for next year. Kind of.

I think The Chief sensed this resignation but knowing how much I had wanted to do it, he found a way around it. We didn’t have to go to the trees and try and pull sleds in melting snow. The trees were right in front of us.

So, one Sunday we decided it was First Time Falling Day. The Chief picked out a near dead tree on the property that needed to go and off we went. Well, sort of.

We went to get the chainsaw (the smaller of the two, still too big for me) and it was gone. A little sleuthing sent us to the neighbor’s house but on the way there we heard a ruckus.

Two dogs and two people arrived at our house just as we rounded the corner towards the opposite direction.

**Sidenote: one of my favorite things about this place is that everywhere you go, humans and dogs are either in equal numbers or the people are outnumbered. It’s pretty much Heaven on Earth.

“Well, I guess that project is on pause” The Chief said.

I couldn’t believe the relief I felt. I had felt a twinge of it when we couldn’t find the saw but just figured I was being lazy. Now, the relief of knowing we were being derailed by visitors and I wouldn’t have to attempt the fall made me relieved which also made me annoyed at myself. But I tabled the realization as I swallowed my frustration with myself and went to meet the droppers by.

An hour and an invite to dinner and music by an outside fireplace later and I figured that the derailment was final. No trees would be dropped today.

Wrong.

The Chief was ready. We were taking down a tree and by We he meant Me. I was weeble-wobbling back and forth. I was feeling nervous but I did want to try. We headed back towards our neighbor’s house and found the saw. It had been taken apart.

Aww shucks, I guess we can’t cut today!

Wrong (again).

We headed back home where The Chief showed me how to put a saw back together again. We re-upped all of the oils and gas and we were ready to go…sort of. A ponytail suddenly felt highly important and I excused myself to go inside and attend to this must-have. Inside, I got my battle gear on. I had been wearing running pants and a baggy sweatshirt. I did not feel the part of a Lumberjane. A ponytail, snow pants, tougher boots and a zip-up later and I was feeling a little more put together and a little more up to the task. Next time I think I’ll reach for the charcoal too and give myself a little warpaint. That’ll do the trick.

So, a personal pump-up later and I was ready. Except I hadn’t run the chainsaw in over a month and I needed a little re-teach. The one thing I immediately remembered was how awkward the saw feels to me. I am left-handed (insert ominous soundtrack here). Our saw is not. I consistently grab for it with the wrong hands and consistently see things backwards, flipping it over on the wrong side or angling from the opposite side I’m supposed to. It’s like working in reverse. As I became reacquainted with the saw and got it running (nothing feels more Lumberjane-y than pulling to start a saw and getting the cord choked up. Nothing flips over except your pride) I started looking at the tree The Chief had handpicked for this newbie.

It seemed a little crooked.

It’s the bigger of the two on the right. The one with the gangsta lean right behind target practice.

The reason it seemed a little crooked was that it was a little crooked. Pretty darn crooked, if you asked me, but hey, I’m the newbie, what do I know?

We started discussing the plan of attack and the moment came when we both realized that maybe the tree was a little crooked for a beginner, but as per usual, true Alaskan style always likes to take you out on a limb so we decided to go for it.

**Sidenote: The moment that made us realize this tree was a toughie was when we realized that I would have to brace myself on one knee in order to make the first cut. Ah, how valiant! A kneeling cut. How very fancy!

Having a saw blade running near you is an intense feeling. It’s waves of excitement mixed with waves of caution. It’s a heightened state where your every move is precise and premeditated.

Or, you’re like me and still trying to get the hang of the basics and your attention is all over the place. But, putting a saw above and in front of your face will help to focus your attention.

The first cut was pretty simple (other than flipping the saw over the wrong way at first – again, lefty problems). The next, the one to create the melon slice, was a little harder. The ground was mossy and icy and it was hard to find balance with a too big saw overhead, much less to create a perfect angle. The Chief had to help guide me but eventually the ends met up. We evaluated the cuts, looked from behind them to see how we thought the tree would fall and decided that we were lined up as perfectly as we could be.

Time for the back cut.

About halfway through The Chief yelled for me to look up. I had been so focused on getting through the cut that I hadn’t even checked on what the tree itself was doing.

She was wobbling.

“Keep going, but watch her as you go” The Chief shouted over the saw and our ear protection.

I did and then I started to hear cracks. The tree was falling. Falling. Falling.

Right into the clearing we were aiming for.

I turned off the saw and just watched for a moment. Everything during the cuts is so loud and so intense that once the tree falls everything suddenly feels very quiet. There’s a finality to the moment that was somewhat lost on me until I cut the tree down myself. A pause. An honoring. A thank you for letting us use your fuel to heat ourselves. And a nod to the cycle you’ve changed and the new cycle that will begin.

From this…

To This…

Little tiny nature miracles wake you up from the quiet.

And then…there’s a celebration. At least there was in our case. There were hugs and high-fives and smooches to be had.

See, we look like bugs, but safe bugs.

Not completely dead, but totally rotten. A beauty, nonetheless

My first tree!

“To the first of many” congratulated The Chief.

Yes, a little crooked, I’d say.

Since we were now somewhat late to dinner we decided to buck up the tree (cut it into lengths that are more easily manueverable. Later they will be cut into lengths that will fit into the fireplace and later will be chopped into wood for fires) when we had time to do it right. Maybe I’d even do it on my own when The Chief was at work (maybe, probably not but at that moment anything seemed possible).

The Chief headed off to check on a charging 4-Wheeler battery and I went inside to get ready. I was starving, all that adrenaline had gotten my heart pumping but I knew we were headed to dinner so I looked for something quick and settled on some salami. Normally, I would cut up smaller slices, maybe with some cheese and apples and sit for a snack but no way, this Lumberjane was tough and in a rush. I cut off a chunk and popped it into my mouth, bit down and…

broke off a piece of my tooth.

I think I swallowed it too, just for good measure.

What in the heck? I just had a chainsaw inches away from my face, running full throttle. I just cut down a 45ft. tree and I come inside and break my tooth on salami? Something is wrong here. Or actually, perfectly on point. Of course that would happen here. Just when you think you’re safe and solid, a little reminder heads your way.

Don’t get cocky.

Do call a dentist.

Well, eventually. It’s not all that bad, The Chief couldn’t even tell which tooth (it’s the bottom left front tooth) but my tongue sure could. I kept feeling the newly rough crag over and over throughout the night. At first I was annoyed with myself. How careless. But then I decided instead to see it for what it was: a good reminder of how fast a slip-up can happen and to listen to your intuition.

Something had whispered to me that I should cut up the salami and maybe if I had the peppercorn that broke my tooth wouldn’t have hidden so well but I didn’t listen and so I met the consequences. I realized that I was lucky that it was this small reminder of how fast things happen out here (and how far away a doctor is) instead of a reminder in the shape of a chainsaw accident.

Yes, I cut down a tree and yes, it was cause for celebration but no, it does not make me a skilled Sawyer by any means.

Maybe a Lumberjane in Training though, I’m good with that. And as long as I remember that I’ll be in training for a long time, as long as I remember not to get too big for my flannel shirts, well then I’m happy to keep learning and earning the name of a Lumberjane.

Driving Lessons: Shifting in the Snow

I love driving, I always have. Since I was little I remember not being able to wait for the day that I would get behind my own set of wheels and race off into freedom.

Yet my love of driving exists despite my initiation, which went a little like this:

“Dad, I really want to learn to drive the truck” (the truck was a Toyota pre-little me, a.k.a probably from the 70’s. She took cooing and caressing everyday in order to start but it only made us love her more).

“O.K. Let’s start” he said as he backed into the lower driveway.

His house had a demonic driveway. There were ditches on both sides (one with a creek) and chunky gravel that left tires spinning and hearts racing. People would come over and once they had made it up the steep gravel slip slide hill of an entrance, they would ask my Dad (or me, eventually) to back their cars out when they left. Some of my friends’ parents who were savvy to the struggle would just drop them off at the bottom of the hill and make them hike the treacherous drive.

It was the kind of hill that you have to lean forward to walk up.

Not the best way to start a play-date but hey, that’s what plates of placating cookies are for.

There were two buildings on the property: the Music Studio (that when approaching the house turned off the driveway mid-hill into a parking spot) and the House (that sat at the top of the driveway).

So, needless to say, when I asked my Dad to teach me to drive that day, I was thinking we would start somewhere a little flatter.

Nope.

I was wrong.

He parked in the lower driveway and we switched seats. I would drive the car up to the house.

Looking back as an adult, this scenario is laughable at best and an ego crusher at worst but as a kid I just figured it was feasible. If he said I could do it I should be able to. Right?

A little background:

I was maybe 8 years old at the time. Even with the bench seat pulled all the way forward my little legs strained to bring my feet to the pedals (I was nicknamed Thumbelina because I was so short while my Dad’s knees were basically up to his ears as he tried to fit back into the truck).
I had never driven anything other than sitting on laps and steering.
The old truck was a stick-shift.
We were parked in the driveway, requiring us to go uphill at a 90 degree turn in order to make it up to the House.

It was starting to feel like I had bit off more than I could chew but what did I know? I just figured that’s how one learned. Right?

Well, I sure did learn something: the clutch is a tricky thing and the gas makes you go. Oh, and seatbelts. Seatbelts are a pretty good idea.

I put the car into gear and as I took my foot off the brake we started sliding backwards towards the Studio (the driveway too was on an incline). Geez! That was an unexpected complicating treat.

“What are you doing?! You’re gonna have to give it more gas than that, kiddo, otherwise we’ll crash into the Studio”.

I started realizing that indeed, this feat was going to be harder than anticipated. My Dad’s Studio was his world and the thought of crashing into the glass doors and crushing the instruments and equipment sprang a leak of fear into my heart. I was not going to hit it. I was determined.

And so I prepared again, feeling gung-ho about heading forward this time and well, I really found the gas pedal and head forward we did.

Straight into the creek.

The car engaged and before I could turn the wheel and we shot straight forward, nose diving into the creek that bordered the opposite side of the driveway (seriously, could this thing be any more treacherous? Ditches and creekbeds and gravel, oh my!)

A tow truck later and the car was finally out of the creek and back where it had started in the lower driveway. My Dad showed me how “easy” it was as he drove to the top of the driveway. I had failed and my love of driving was lost. I spent the rest of the day with a tummyache while my Mom spent the rest of the day Mama-Bearing my Dad (thanks, Ma!).

Looking back, he probably could have started me under better conditions. I spent the next few years terrified of driving. My Mom once even tried to get me to just sit and keep my foot on the brake of one car while she moved another where I would then gas it up the easy driveway. No one else was around to help her but I couldn’t. I ended up in a panic. No way. No wheels, thank you.

But, eventually, age and necessity caught up and my fear of driving was slowly replaced by my need for freedom.

Growing up in the boonies (or what I thought was the boonies back then) I was limited to where my feet and my parents could or would take me. My nearest friend’s house at my Mom’s was miles away (after you got up our mile long straight up and down driveway) through backroads with no shoulder and blind curves a plenty. My nearest friend’s house at my Dad’s was so far that the one time I attempted to walk to it my dog Dixie (a puppy at the time) gave up walking and made me carry her the remaining few miles. So, as I started approaching driving age, I got more and more restless to be self-sufficient.

The clear solution? Steal my parents’ cars of course.

My favorite to steal was my Dad’s girlfriend’s car. One, because it was a zippy automatic (I had yet to have a second stick shift lesson and all of my Dad’s cars were manuals) and two because well, we didn’t really get along so the guilt I felt was minimal at best. I know, I know, I am a terrible person…or just a bored and opportunistic country kid (you choose).

However, one day my friends and I wanted to leave and the only car available was my Dad’s stick shift. I took my girlfriend’s word for it that she was an expert stick driver and off we went.

Down the driveway (thankfully the car was already facing downhill),

down the street and…

straight into a mailbox.

After paying for that (both fiscally and in endless variations of the phrase “I’m sorry” for months) I took a little break from my auto theft days and distracted myself with saving for my own car for when I turned 16. Since I wasn’t about to ask for another manual lesson from my Dad (he was still pretty mad about the whole mailbox incident) I ended up buying an automatic and other than a few stints in friends’ stick shifts, it’s been automatics all the way.

Every time I drove a stick shift I loved it. It felt like I was really driving. I desperately wanted one but never had the guts to just buy one and learn how to drive it as I went (what a test drive that would have been).

And so, I stuck to automatics, kicking myself every time a situation arose where someone needed me to drive a manual and I couldn’t help.

Until now.

With the seasons changing here…

A week ago there wasn’t an exposed rock in sight and the ice sheets were snow machine highways.

I consulted my What I Want to Learn Before the End of this Winter List and saw a lot of unchecked boxes (how did I not become fluent in three languages, become a guitar virtuoso and write a manifesto?) but the one unchecked box that stuck out the most was driving a stick shift. Lucky for me, The Chief has an old SUV that just got up and running again last Fall.

Don’t be jealous of her lovely lady lumps n’ bumps.

It was time.

A few minor bumps in the road arose:

I had never driven in the snow. Not in an automatic. Not ever. Now I was going to learn a stick shift in Spring snow (read: ever changing conditions, enormous puddles, sheets of ice, ruts and slush…oh joy!)
I could barely reach the clutch again (seriously?!)
The car is lovingly called “The Jack in the Box” because it’s shocks are so shot that when you hit even the tiniest of bumps it rocks back and forth and up and down for what feels like eternity, just in time to hit another bump and start the rock and roll all over again. Basically, it’s like driving a boat through big seas. But hey, I’ve got fishermen in my family. I can brave the seas.
The ignition. The ignition is an exposed bundle of wires attached to where the key normally goes. In order to start the Jack in the Box one must first acquire a flathead screwdriver. Upon acquistion one must find the “sweet spot” in order to be able to start the car. Nervous? Flustered? Good luck starting this beast. She requires a gentle touch and a lot of patience (hmmm, this is sounding familiar).

Yet despite these minor issues, I was ready to roll. I’ll have to learn to drive in real snow (driving last month in Anchorage there was hardly any snow. They had to bring in snow on the train for the Iditarod start so, needless to say, it was minimal) someday and if I want a vehicle to drive here it’s going to be this one so why not throw it all together at once? This seems to be a common theme here: try the hardest way first. And you know what? I prefer it that way.

Jump on in, the water is intense but after this you’ll be able to swim in anything.

Learning Day: The Chief popped Jack into 4-wheel drive, backed out of the parking spot, and brought us to the main road. The road may have been covered in snow and rutted to pieces but at least it was flat(ish), wide and a long straightaway (Dad, if you’re giving any driving lessons these days, take note). We switched seats. The Chief gave me the rundown (oh, that probably would have been helpful back in the day too). I started the car with the screwdriver on my first try and…we were off. Just like that.

Snowy? Check. Gorgeous? Check.

And then we saw an approaching 4-wheeler and all of the lesson went out the window as I panicked and stalled. The 4-wheeler carried a neighbor who wished The Chief “luck and safety in his teachings”.

Minor embarrassment aside, the rest of the lesson got us all the way to the footbridge (our final destination) from which we could walk into Town. I did it!

The Footbridge into Town

Sidenote: there is a vehicle bridge that takes you into Town but at the end of Winter money is scarce and an investment like a bridge key for a couple hundred dollars sounds a lot worse than just parking at the Footbridge and walking into Town (that’s what feet are for anyways, if they’re able).

After that, I figured we would practice when we had time. I wasn’t completely comfortable, surely not ready to be on my own but I felt confident and proud.

Surprise!

It started to rain. The already melting snow turned to slush and just as my work week started the snow machine trails turned to mushy rock-laden crash traps. I drove anyways. It wasn’t that bad, right? After narrowly avoiding one rock, only to catch the tip of the ski on another and driving over dirt on some parts of the road to Town, The Chief and I decided it was best to stop using the machines before we ended up breaking something (on them or on us).

Since the rains this is the best this road has looked. Ruts and all.

No problem, right?

Oh, except for that minor issue of getting to and from work twice a day (split-shifts). Well, one option was that I could become a half-marathon runner and clock 14 miles per day going back and forth. Or, I could test just how solid I was in the statement that I wasn’t ready to drive by myself yet.

I’m down with exercise but 14 is about 10 miles too many to walk, run or ski in any given work day. And so, I set out on my own.

The first morning driving on my own the temperature had dropped below freezing the night before and the windshield was a thick layer of ice. There’s nothing like rushing to obtain the calm, cool, collected demeanor necessary to start the Jack. After running back and forth to the house for credit cards and hot water to scrape and melt the windshield there was finally a shred of visibility large enough to gain exit (I had forgotten about the back window but there wasn’t enough time. Besides, that’s what mirrors are for, right?). I tried to start the car. I failed. Deep breaths, Julia-San. A few hurried belly breaths and a few attempts later and the car finally started. I had to give it extra oomph to back the Jack out of the frozen puddle it was parked in and then panicked as I flew backwards towards the 90 degree turn I needed to complete in reverse in order to right myself towards the driveway exit. I slammed on the brakes.

I forgot the clutch.

Stalling is humbling. It teaches you to pay better attention, slow down, take a moment.

I wasn’t in the mood for a lesson.

Three more stalls later and I was high-fiving myself for having avoided the trees and other vehicles around me. I was finally facing the right way. I made it out to the road only to see that indeed, conditions had changed overnight (as they always do, yet still I am always surprised). It was no longer the puffy little snow drive I had been hoping for. Nope, the road had become a skating rink.

As I slid towards my destination I saw the next changed condition: snow melt and rain had caused huge puddles to form and the freeze the night before had caused sheets of ice to form on top.

Oh joy!

I geared up and headed through, finding out (as I hit one) that large rocks were also in this mixed bag of road dangers. The Jack bounced and bounded through the puddles rocking me to the next challenge: a small river had formed. I waded through slowly, too slowly, so that I almost stalled again but I figured four times of stalling was the charm, I didn’t need more, and so I was able to gas it through.

This was made by…

this. Which was made by melting snow. A week ago all of this was fluffy white snow machining paradise.

A few fishtails later and having avoided crashing or falling off steep banks I made it to the footbridge. I had gone outside to start the car at 7:15. I had driven 3 miles and it was now 7:42 am and I had to be at work in 18 minutes which was about a mile away still, over the footbridge and through the woods, which in slushy snow is slow going. But I couldn’t help pause for a celebration dance. I was on top of the world. I had made it! I hadn’t planned on driving solo for months but in true Alaska style, she had other plans for me. I stopped to celebrate my first voyage.

Celebration dance not pictured. Celebration face, pictured.

and hurriedly slipped and slid my way to work to play dish pit stained glass:

Just like with the snow machine, practice makes perfect and although the split shift can be tough, it’s been great for practice. Four trips per day for my shifts last week has made me confident, but anytime that starts to turn into cocky, Alaska will send a little fishtail action my way or an unseen rock to send me bouncing. Just like every lesson here, it comes with the requirement of respect and the check of ego. If you get too big for your britches the stitches will rip.

And so, britches intact (though with some patches) I try to remember that each day is different. Some days I’ll wake up to blue skies and a defrosted windshield, others I’ll wake up to rain and still others to a frozen Jack in the Box. That’s the deal.

Without the snow melting and re-freezing, I never would have gotten to see this little ice gem. Everyday adds to the next.

Either way, I’ll still finally be driving (and stalling) a stick shift, a lesson that started 21 years ago. And no matter the weather, I still get to be driving here, in the middle of a national forest (**Correction: National Park & Preserve) with my trusty screwdriver and my Lou at my side (who I swear rolls her eyes when I stall but makes me feel safer nonetheless).

Cheers, to the closing of the chapter “Stick Shift Up a Creek” and to the start of “Julia and the Jack in the Box”.

Even through a shattered windshield, it’s a view to remember.

Hi Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Off to Work I Go…

Where I’m from in California, it’s pretty much essential to have a car. Public transportation is lacking (to say the least) and even if it was better it still would be near impossible to get to a friend’s house in the boonies without some other added mode of transportation. Why not walk? Walking the roads is like tip-toeing on railroad tracks. Often there’s little to no shoulder and blind curves are plentiful. And so, although I’d prefer to walk or bike it’s often much more efficient to drive to work. Almost everyone I know has their own convenient individual machines and…Hi Ho Hi Ho, off to work we go. It goes a little like this:

Going to Work (Anytime) in California:

Steps 1-5 to get out the door: Wake up early enough to go for a walk or run. Take a shower (you have hot water that pours straight from the wall!). Eat breakfast. Caffeinate. Make lunch.

Step 6: Head outside to your car (likely already warmed a bit by the morning sunshine). Insert key and search for some music to play through your phone while the car warms up (while sipping coffee).

Step 7: You’re off! Ugh, it’s so hot in here. Put back the sunroof and get your summer highlights and your vitamin D intake started.

Step 8: Stop for snacks. What’s a workday without a little chocolate? Stop at your favorite local hippie mart (today Andy’s market is on the way) and grab some goodies and hey, while you’re there why not a specialty coffee drink? You could really go for a Dirty Chai today (if you haven’t had one, try one. You can trust me on this).

Step 9: Arrive at work, cozy and caffeinated.

Step 10: Work. Maybe go grocery shopping on your lunch break (you have a hankering for a good Bolognese tonight. Maybe some zoodles? I think I was banned in California from saying that word too much. Zoodles too are delicious. Try them. I am living my culinary fantasies through you).

Step 11: You’re done! Get back into your cozy car, run an errand or two and head to your warm house. Hey, maybe even meet a friend for Happy Hour or go to the gym. The world is at your fingertips, my friend.

Going to Work in the Winter in Alaska:

Steps 1-around 50: In Order to Get Out the Door…

You wake up (seemingly) early enough to get all of your chores done so you can leave the house (and know that you’ll never wake up early enough to do them all…so you immediately start prioritizing once you’ve risen). Put on water to boil. Make a fire. The dog will tell you if she’s ready for breakfast or not (she likely will be if you’re running late, she likely won’t be if you’re on time. She’s good at testing you like that). Brush them bucks and wash your face after the water has warmed on the stove. Do a little bird bath action (oh, to have an on-demand shower). Pour the water into the coffee pot and while it’s circulating through the grounds go outside to check the machine. You glance at the thermometer: last night it got down to -13 but now it’s 15 above.

You assess: how many layers will I need this morning? Big gloves or light gloves? Parka or double lighter jackets? Check the gas and the oil on the machine. Low and low.

Head to the gas drum and loosen the air escape, unhook the hose and pump the arm until you fill the gas tank (and likely overfill. Ah, the smell of gasoline all over your clothes first thing in the morning. At least you already built the fire). Tighten the air escape and replace the hose. There’s a bit of water in the gas from melted snow so pour the gas through a water filter so the machine will run more evenly (apparently water in gas is a bad thing…makes sense). Find a can of oil and add it to the machine, careful not to overfill this too (a funnel would be helpful but…naw).

By now your coffee is ready but you only have enough time to find all of your layers and get dressed before it’s time to leave (you didn’t realize the gas can was empty so you are now minus ten minutes, no coffee interlude this morning). This is when the pup decides she’s hungry but she’s so cute you can’t help but concede.

She sleeps with her tongue out. Enough said.

O.k., now it’s really time to hustle. As you’ve been doing chores throughout the morning you’ve been planning your layers so you can be quick to dress. You find all the components and start dressing just as you look and see that you forgot to take the liners out of your boots last night (I have never had to do this before this winter. I didn’t even know liners came out, probably because I’ve never had a boot with liners since I’ve never lived in snow so needless to say, I’m out of habit). Oh well, things could be much worse than cold feet for the day.

You dress and tie your hair back, pack the coffee into a to-go mug, put extra layers in your backpack and head outside.

Step 51: Driving

The machine (snow machine) got cold along witht the weather last night and so it is a little sleepy to start but after a few extra pulls you get her going. You rev the engine lightly and listen for the drop in pitch to let you know you can take the choke completely off (even when you’re rushing, you still have to make sure to treat your equipment like a queen, lest she decide to cast you out the Realm of the Riding). You rev a few more times, listening for her to tell you she’s ready to rumble. You give it one last big rev and she jolts forward. She’s ready! Get on the rest of your gear (goggles and ear protectors (these machines are loud)) and you’re off!

You decide to take a different route this morning so as not to disturb your neighbors (it is 7:30 in the morning, after all) and head out to the road just in time to see the deep blue as the sun makes her ascent over the mountains.

It’s a great big snow globe world out here

You also already hit a good enough speed on your short route so far to realize that you have indeed under-dressed. You’re still still learning. Some days 15 above feels like 40 and other days it feels like 15 below zero. Moisture, wind and other scientific stuffs all affect how we feel at the same temperature and today, well, you underestimated. Now, you can decide one of two things:

Drive as fast as you can to get there as quickly as you can so as to minimize time in the cold

Drive slowly to keep the wind down and stay warmer but endure a longer trip

You decide to compromise: you’ll stand up while driving as fast as you can (safely, Mom, don’t worry). Sounds counter-intuitive, right? But because your windshield is busted it is actually less windy above the windshield. Tadaa! Plus, since you didn’t get to go for a walk or exercise this morning this will be your stand-in for a workout (it takes muscles I didn’t even know existed to be able to drive this thing). You bounce around following the river and trying to learn different limits of the machine (and your driving ability) until…

Step 52: The River Crossing

In order to get to work you need to cross a (mostly) frozen river (mostly being the most operative word here). Two months ago, the crossing was impossible due to the breaking of a glacial lake in the mountains which, subsequently, opened up the river.

Open water along the river path commute

Time to cross over the bridge, I guess

But, now it often is possible. The bridge is an alternative, but a unpreferable one at best since, due to the warm weather (up to 45 degrees above zero!) we’ve been having lately, all of the snow has melted from the bridge. This makes it a spark-filled adventure to cross on the metal skis of a snow machine. Therefore, if possible, it’s best to take the river.

The first time I crossed the river by myself I was pretty sure I would fall in the whole time.

This had been my preparation:

“How do I know if it’s cross-able?” I asked everyone I ran into.

“You’ll know.”

Oh, I’ll know? That seems unlikely. I mean, I’ve been here for one winter. I don’t think that makes me any sort of ice expert. I’m more of an ice cream expert.

But, yes, if I approach the river and see it gushing, sure, I’ll know not to cross. Yet aside from the an obvious flow, how do I know if the ice I see is ice to cross?

The Chief and I had talked about dark ice being precarious and to watch for overflow (essentially when there is water out on the ice) because this indicates that water has broken through somewhere and is flowing, making the ice very slippery and less stable (though not necessarily impossible to cross).

As far as I had surmised, it seemed the key ingredients to crossing a river were:

Inspection (looking at the river, maybe even turning off the machine and listening to the river – the only problem with that is that even a crossable river may have an audible flow of water beneath it)

and

Intuition/Decisions (see: going for it). Once you’ve decided to cross, you’re crossing and if you start to fall in, the only option is more speed. Great!

On my first solo crossing I already had concluded on one ingredient: I was going across. Probably, it would have been best to decide that after inspection but, hey, I’ll admit I’m stubborn. I was ready and I was going. I did pause at the top of the hill that leads down to the river and although it was jagged and craggy with icebergs as speed bumps, what I could see looked doable and so, I went.

As I started out, the ice quickly changed pitch below me. At first the skis made a deep rolling sound on the ice but it quickly changed to a hollow growl.

Eek!

Time for a second helping of the ingredient of speed.

I hurried across the remaining crossing and once on the other side stopped to see my path.

I had made my first crossing.

By myself.

I let out a holler a wolf would be proud of and then promptly texted The Chief that I was alive (he apparently was not as surprised as I was, you know, that whole undying faith in me thing and all. I don’t know where he gets it, but I’m sure glad he seems to have it in bulk).

Ok, let’s return to the Journey to Work (Step 52 continued):

Since by now (two weeks into work) crossing the river is old hat (see: you still get nervous every time because every hour on the river is potential for change. You could be able to cross in the morning and by mid-day the river could be flowing) you approach the river with healthy inquiry. It’s like being a kid at a crosswalk. Stop, look both directions. Grab your mommy’s hand (oh, darn. Mom, can you visit now?) and go.

You cross without incident and now you are more than halfway to work (a little celebration dance follows). Your legs are starting to get tired from essentially performing a twenty minute long squat but, hey, you’re not exactly hitting the gym out here so why not? Plus, it’s helping to warm you up. Well, most of you.

Step 53: Arrival at Work

You arrive at work with frozen fingers (you had to stop once just to blow on them because they started hurting so much) and remind yourself to keep heavier gloves in your ever-expanding backpack (it’s filled with an every-growing array of potentially needed items). You arrive early because you always try to leave early in case something comes up (everything from running into a friend to running out of gas becomes a possible time swap and so I always try to build in a buffer) but today you’re using this extra time to warm up before you start your shift. Plus, you need time to disrobe.

It’s funny to arrive at work and the first thing you do is start undressing and re-dressing. Your pile of outerwear takes up half of the back table (the other half is for the chef, you’re working at the local saloon/restaurant that’s just opened again for a quick blip in the pre-season for the film crew in town) and that ever-growing backpack comes in handy as you swap out for a new shirt (turns out that 30 minute squat really got your blood pumping). Finally your fingers have defrosted and now, it’s time to start work. It feels like a whole workday has gone by just getting here, but really it’s just the beginning.

Three hours later, coffee and breakfast served and dishes done and your shift is over (youwork split shifts of three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening). It’s 11am and you’re free until 5:30. What to do?

Step 54: Getting Home

You figure you could use a little walk so you leave the machine (and most of your outerwear gear) in town and head home, walking the hidden paths the machine can’t power through and crossing the frozen river on foot.

Crossing a footbridge…look to the left…

and look to the right.

Step 55: Making Use of Home Time

And so, a little over an hour later, you return home. The fire needs to be stoked but at least it’s taken away the morning chill. You survey the scene: what needs to be done? Haul water, do laundry, do the dishes, finish outside projects…etc. and then decide what’s feasible in four hours (since now, having left the machine in town, you’ll need at least an hour to get yourself back to work). You spin the chore wheel in your head and then the fun wheel for your post-chore reward (I think today it might be a nap) and set out to get things done. Or not. Some days, you’re tired and you go straight to the fun wheel (read: nap time).

Step 56: The Journey Back

Alright, it’s 4pm and time to head out again. Since you left most of your outerwear gear at the restaurant (it’s too hot to walk that far in) you suit up with lighter snow pants and layers that can go under your bulkier outerlayers or into your backpack for the ride home on the snow machine tonight. You decide why not go for the whole trifecta and ski to work? Plus, the pup could use some exercise. She’s ten so she can’t run with the snow machine anymore, but she can lap you even on skis and so you interrupt her from her afternoon snooze-sesh to go on an adventure. You call her “Uncle” who’s working construction in town to make sure he can give her a ride home in his truck. It’s settled. You’re off.

Well, almost. You forgot an extra pair of shoes (since ski boots probably would be a bit slippery for work). The ever-expanding backpack is getting ever-heavier now.

Ok, now you’re off. Packed like a mule and ready to glide like Tanya Harding (oh wait, we liked Nancy Kerrigan, right?).

Thirty minutes in and you’re to the river crossing.

Little Lou inspecting the grounds

Perked ears listening to the water below

It’s eerie to look down into the craggy ice and see and hear water below, knowing that only hours earlier you took hundreds of pounds over the same spot. But at the same time, seeing the thickness of the outcroppings of ice and testing it with jumps and prods with poles overpowers any fears, at least for now.

18″ thick ain’t bad

Plus, when your dog runs ahead of you, you immediately feel safer (and even if it’s an unjust sense of security, it’s security nonetheless).

And so, you cross again.

Oh Turtlebackapack, how I love thee

Once on the other side, past the swimming hole

(better suited as an ice skating rink nowadays), you run into three friends at one of the creeks people stop at to fills jugs for drinking water (pretty amazing, huh? Fresh, pure water flowing year-round. Yes please). Ten minutes later, updated on everyone’s latest happenings, you’re off again. Lou has already ditched you. She knows that where she’s going there’s a potential for french fries and if you’re around she’s less likely to get as many (yea, mom put her Little Lou on a little diet. “Husky” can’t serve as both her breed and her physical description).

Step 57: Lose the Layers

You get to work and start the undressing/dressing game again, clean up all the snow you’ve tracked into the bathroom, grab a makeshift water bowl for your thirsty pup, attach your skis and poles to the machine (better now than later in the dark) and clock in.

Bungee cord jamboree

Step 58: The Hand-Off

Thirty minutes later, you’re outside again, handing Lou off to her Uncles (three came to collect her post work). It feels like you’re dropping her off at daycare. Puppy eyes and all, but in a few hours you’ll be home with her again.

Step 59: The Last Journey Home

And before you know it, you’re suiting up again, ready to hit the road and head home. You approach the river crossing but by now, near 9pm, it’s dark. You have sound and intuition to go on because your lights cast more of a shadow from up on the hill than provide information.

You decide to go for it.

In the few hours since you skied over you notice a chunk has collapsed in and so you pick up speed and evaluate the route ahead as quickly as you can as you race towards solid ground.

You make it.

Success!

A few more twists and turns and slips (since you packed your running shoes for work because a. your backpack couldn’t fit boots and b. it sounded fun to wear something other than boots for the first time in months, but it turns out they aren’t the best snow machining shoes. Grip is key. Duly noted) and slalom-esque tree avoidance and you’re home, sweet home.

Step 60: The Wind-Down & Reboot

The house is cold since the afternoon fire burnt out (The Chief is away for his post-op appointment, not just home letting fires burn out at home) and the has temperature dropped but you’re warm from the ride (you tried a different squat maneuver this time that was a real workout). Thankfully, you chopped wood during your break so that you wouldn’t have to chop it upon returning home and you build a fire in no time. Doubly thankfully, you’ve been fed at work because the idea of making a meal from scratch right now sounds like building the Wall o’ China (or something else equally difficult). You settle in with a good flick and cuddle with the pup and congratulate yourself on having taken care of the house solo and gotten to work twice without incident and settle in to do it all over again tomorrow.

Phew!

The End.

So yes, going to work in the winter in Alaska is a little different from what I’m used to. It feels like three days wrapped into one by the end of it and the steps are far more involved and plentiful than I could have ever imagined (geez, I used to balk at having to stop for gas once a week where the pump pumps for you and the trucks deliver the fuel to your fingertips). But although I do miss the luxury of stopping for chocolate at a health food store or meeting a girlfriend for a glass of wine, I’m grateful to return to our little house in the woods, warm or cold, where the wine is often in a box (all the better for transporting to share with neighbors) and the chocolate is shipped in via care package (thank you Katinka). It’s funny to think of the parallels this life has provided, for every reality we are used to is what we come to expect and now, in this new life, I never really know what to expect. I guess that is my new reality.

Cheers to the unknown and to that which will become known.