She is not rising, I am not still

I came to the mountain to find my name. To hear it spoken
in the resolute tones of the land. I came to find my name in the
grasses of the tundra, as if offered up by the very motions of the
plates below. The word is no secret, but I have never heard it
spoken so far from my home and my family. I sought out the mountain
to remind me of the beginning of all things, and of the rising of
the sun. In the Athabaskan language, Denali means "the Great One."
This was where I searched, but she is not rising.

I am not still. Even as I sit here, not a muscle twitching, my blood
continues to slither throughout my body and
my cells swim freely in their own liquid atmospheres.
I want to be a better man. I want to function more efficiently.
My mind, my body, and my soul should all work as one.
But there is a problem, because the soul is evidenced only
through its absence, as in: "you ain't got no soul" or its practical
application, such as the soulful voice of Nneena Freelon.
As I search through years of cast-off emotions, there
is no way to keep the information organized, no way
to halt my ebb and flow.

When I leave the mountain, empty handed regardless of the outcome
of my search, I will guard my name for the rest of my days.
I will also hold the mountain as a sacred thing. She is the conjurer of
my destiny, the bearer of my compass. We are all the pioneers of our
own lives, but for every victory and defeat for the rest of my days
I will have the memory of this journey. For each face I kiss and each
hand I hold I will know that it was my return from the mountain and
my time as her witness that made the taste sweet and the gesture
genuine. When I first came here I was like a child who believed
Denali was growing right before me and that I was holding my ground
against the breaking waves of life, but I was wrong.
She is not rising, I am not still.

The Longest Day of My Life

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. I am as far north on the planet as I am ever likely to be on this day of the year, thus, it will literally be the longest day I will ever experience while I take my spin on this sparkling, verdant space rock of ours. Coincidentally, it is also one of my days off this week. Due to the fact that the woman who hired me at the lodge took a different position within days of giving me a job (her parting gift to the department or a final middle finger?), there is a new manager making our schedule and this week I have off today and Friday. I would gripe a bit about not having my days of leisure back to back, but I don't plan on doing any traveling this week and today might be the only sunny day we get. Of course, as I am typing this it is beginning to rain. A brief sun shower, I suppose, but it drives home the fact that it has rained every single day for the past two weeks.

But I'm getting off track. Today is Solstice, and I have the day off. Normally I wake up around 4:45 in the morning to get ready for work. My job is close by, but I have to be there, most days, by 5:30. Because I knew I was planning on sleeping in today, I treated myself to a DVD and a nice meal last night, and stayed up late to enjoy both. Usually I am in bed, if not already asleep, by ten o'clock. Sherlock Holmes and my halibut and chips kept me up until almost midnight. And then there were some text messages and calls from a friend at home. It was nearly 1:30 before my eyes asserted their right to close and my dreams carried me away again. And sleep in I did. Nearly 9:30 before I rolled off my futon.

Here, on days that I am not working, I am somewhat aimless. I don't really know what there is around here, and it is impractical for me to take tours right now due to financial considerations. With all the rain lately, I've been spending quite a bit of time inside, watching movies, reading books, I've even started exercising again. With the sun out, and all the time in the world, I hardly know what to do with myself. Mostly I would just take walks around town, or sit in the park and people watch. This is a small town, and as far as the populace goes, it has all the foibles and lack of privacy that that entails. But each day there are throngs of people brought in on busses to look around and eat and shop. It's like a wildlife preserve of humans. Outsiders like myself come in, due their touristy business, pay for their bag of peanuts, point at the monkeys and go home to tell stories about it. It's interesting to me to take in people's reactions to life here. The personality of the town, and its locals, is off-kilter enough to sustain the steady flow of commerce, and occasionally ropes folks in to staying or at least returning for another go 'round.

This morning I actually started to form a plan for my day. There were a few things I wanted to do, not necessarily outdoorsy things, but things I wanted to use to fill my time. For instance, the internet connection where I live is fine for email and text and photo websites, but I've been using Hulu to catch up on the television shows I like and the connection is a bit too slow for that. To remedy this, I go to the library where the wifi is speedy enough to allow me uninterrupted viewing. Since I only go there one day a week, I wind up having around three hours worth of stuff to catch up on, and today was my day. Uninspired for the longest day ever, but as a practical matter it suits me just fine. I also wanted to stop by the post office and see if I had any mail. And I definitely wanted to treat myself to a nice, big breakfast.

There are easily half a dozen places around that serve breakfast, including my place of employment, but today I tried my friend Natasha's work, and our local brew pub, Twister Creek. Because of my early hours, I don't really eat before work. Breakfast is my favorite meal, and I never have it anymore, so today I ate like a king. French toast, sausage, bacon. A tall glass of ice cold milk. It was awesome. I watched the first half of the Spain vs. Honduras World Cup match and relaxed. Afterwards, I made my way to the library and watched a bit of TV on my laptop. I'm not going to go into detail about all that, but I will take this moment to recommend the show Justified to any and everyone who reads this. It is a spectacular bit of entertainment, and features top notch writing and acting. So I spent a few hours at the library, caught up on some TV, updated my computer's software, and then headed to the Post Office. I wasn't expecting anything, but I figured I should check since I do have a PO Box now. To my surprise, there was a piece of mail from a friend back home. It was a card, and a kindness that I won't go on about for the sake of saving a shy person some embarrassment, sufficed to say that I was reminded again that I am blessed with the friendship of some of the best people on this earth. I walked out of the Post Office into a storm of cottonwood pollen. Enough of the stuff has been blowing around town to make it seem like a snow globe any time the rain stops. It piles up in the streets, against the walls of buildings and around car tires. It's as if every wish ever blown off the top of a dandelion stem made its way here. It was too nice a day to continue this line of thinking. I certainly don't think Talkeetna is where wishes come to die, but the fuzzy bastards were doing their best approximation of a seed head apocalypse. I decided my best bet was to head out of town and go for a hike in the woods, so I returned to the place Natasha took me a couple of weeks ago, the X-Y-Z lakes.

Alaska has about seventy trillion lakes, and the naming process is dodgy at best, but when I started hearing people refer to X-Y Lakes a few weeks ago I just assumed they had literally run out of names. Turns out no one I have asked so far knows why these particular lakes have these names, or even which lake is which, but it's a nice little area to walk around. There is also a Question Lake, as well as an Answer Creek, so it seems the entirety of existential rumination is covered by the local parks system. In any case, the trail I took is about three miles, and well maintained. The only thing you have to be mindful of is local wildlife. Natasha and I didn't see any bears or moose the last time we walked it, and I figure that enough people use the trail regularly that I'm a fair bet make it around without incident. Here are a few pictures of my hike. I'm sorry if some are low-quality, as I took them with the 5 mp camera on my phone with no real zoom to speak of and whatever cheapo lens Samsung put in the thing.

Could be X, Y, or Z...

only the Shadow knows.

The people rowing were coming towards me and as they passed they asked if they could buy some pot. I was actually a bit disappointed that I couldn't help, even though I have never smoked in my life.

Uprooted.

A bench by the lake.

Uprooted II. What can I say? Obvious does not diminish appropriate.

I wish there was a zoom on this camera, you can see the range a bit in the distance.

You would also have seen the creek better in this shot.

I wanted to feel the temperature of the water. Hope I don't get Beaver Fever...

from the Beaver dam you can just make out on the other side.

Not a bad place to spend the longest day of your life.

Without the sunrise and sunset, without time to measure against, all of life blends together. Our lives need some manner of delineation so we can process things in an organized fashion. Here in the land of the midnight sun, my days have become something of a blur. I am constantly checking the calendar on my phone or laptop, or asking co-workers what day it is. My concept of the passage of time is dulled, as all of my resources for organizing the chaos of my life have been turned inward. I am now measuring the passage of time in shifts at work vs. days off. In sets of push-ups or laps around the lake. In letters and emails, or even in text messages which inform me that things outside this place go on without me, and life is ever forward. The length of one day, stacked up against a lifetime of precious moments with people I love, is relatively insignificant. But although I spent most of my longest day alone, it didn't seem to pass me by too fast at all. Think of your days, and think of those you love. And take your time.

Be it ever so humble...

"He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home."  ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I could regale you with tales of my week, about how I started working for real at the restaurant at the lodge, about how yesterday was one of the most humbling experiences on a job I've ever had due to the perfect storm of things that should not happen to a professional with 18 years experience in the service industry. Or I could tell you about how I managed to lock myself out of my place the second night I was there, wearing nothing but sweats and a zip-up hoodie, with no way to contact the landlord due to everything I own being inside; and oh yeah, it was raining. I could tell you about the fox I saw two days ago carrying his freshly taken prey across the road to enjoy for breakfast or even the entire convoluted tale about how my friends Natasha and Tyler essentially had their dog stolen by some unstable Alaskan lady who drove it over 80 miles away after she "rescued" it from wandering the streets (in front of Natasha & Tyler's house). I could go on at length about any number of these things, but instead I'm just going to give you a photo tour of my "home" away from home. And then maybe point out one thing involving trains.

I've already provided info on what a yurt is so I'm not gonna go through that again, but here's the view walking up the driveway. The building to the left is the kitchenette and bathrooms. Another renter on the property, who lives in a regular old tent pitched on the ground about 70 yards away, shares the kitchen with me, and everyone shares the washer/dryer. In total there are seven of us on this property, there is Marne, my landlord, who shares space with her boyfriend Geoff and Bailey, who is daughter to one or both of them, I'm not really sure. Also, Matt and Heather, who rent the loft apartment attached to Marne's place. Dennis is the guy in the tent, and I have the yurt. There are also two dogs (Jenna and Frank) and two cats (Pretty Kitty and Arlo).

Continuing up the drive, with some of the yard in view. Yurts are not usually built off the ground like this, and I am impressed with the effort the construction of this one must have taken. It's a twenty footer, a little over three feet off the ground, well insulated, and has a skylight and three windows.

This is the inside of the kitchenette. It's got a brand spankin' new stove, double well sink, microwave, toaster oven, mini-fridge, and a small table. It is well constructed and insulated, but the heater is never on in there so it is chilly, which I'm not particularly fond of.

Especially when I use my bathroom. Maybe it's just me, but I HATE cold bathrooms. I don't like sitting down on a cold toilet, I don't like brushing my teeth while shivering, and I especially don't like freezing my ass off after just getting out of one of my patented über-hot showers. But I'm not gonna complain too much because most of the people who live around here don't have their own private bathrooms, or even showers or running water in their summer rentals; they use outhouses and pay to take showers at a campground.

Another view of the kitchen where you can make out some of the other appliances.

One of the creative landscaping choices in our yard.

A view of the front.

The bedroom and lounge area.

A Talkeetna style walk-in closet.

Wardrobe / dressing area.

The den.

The study. 

As to the lighting, well, we're still working out the kinks in our camera/photographer relationship.

The skylight still has its winter cover on inside. I asked Marne to keep it like this because the sun never fucking sets here and I need to get some sleep. Seriously, it's still light out at 2 am, and I get up no later than 5, so I try to make it as dark as possible.

The heater, possibly my favorite amenity. It's summer here and it still gets into the 40s at night. 

I've got this great rug that really ties the room together.

And if you don't like it, there's the door.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with what I've got here. Being a city boy, of course I'd like things to be a little nicer/less rustic, and I wouldn't mind at all if it was cheaper, but I've seen what else is out there and this place is definitely one of the nicest going, and probably the best non-cabin option in town.

That being said, I sure wish it wasn't so close to the train tracks. It turns out that in addition to the regular passenger lines that whisk vacationers and mountain climbers back and forth from Anchorage to Fairbanks and back all day, there is also a freight line that uses the same tracks. I guess they want to send those trains at off hours when the passenger line isn't running because the one that made me realize that the difference between a yurt and an actual walled structure can be summed up in the words "noise dampening" blew through town at about 4 o'clock this morning. And it has to blast its whistle every time because it crosses the main road two blocks away. Vincent LaGuardia Gambini ain't got shit on me.

Notes on a transplant: A field trial on the efficacy of optimism.

The last few days have seen some big events in my summer excursion. Try to imagine a metronome granted sentience in some sort of Fantasian dream which then decides to spend it's entire brief life of awareness on amphetamine and you'll get some idea of my mood swings since Monday.

I brought my bicycle with me from Jersey, and on the trip up it got a little gunked up with dirt and debris. When we got to Anchorage I dropped it at a local bike shop for a tune-up. About a week after I got to Talkeetna, I took a ride back to Anchorage to pick it up and when I got there I noticed a bit of smoke coming from under my hood. Of course being over 4500 miles from home, with very little money and no idea how to work on cars, this freaked me out a bit. I looked things over, which is a bit like a a high school student trying to diagnose one of Dr. House's patients, but figured that since the check engine light wasn't on, it wasn't over-heating, and there was no discernible oil leaks or spatters that I was safe to make it back to Talkeetna (a two hour plus drive). Just to be safe I bought a spare bottle of engine coolant.

Neither myself, nor the trained eyes at the local service shop could spot a coolant leak and I made it back without incident, but discovered that the smoke was indeed coming from the radiator. When I got into town I asked Holli if her husband, who is a mechanic, would mind taking a look and see if he could figure out what was going on. A few days later he came by and after getting underneath he noticed that a small valve at the bottom of the radiator was weeping fluid; not a large leak, but enough to cause problems. After consulting with him, as well as my brother-in-law Shawn back home, the simple/cheap fix idea was to remove the offending plug and epoxy the hole shut completely. By then it was a holiday weekend, and the only place around where I might purchase something that works would be closed until Tuesday. I'm fully bummed about still being unemployed, and not looking forward to figuring out a way to perform this minor procedure without any tools, or ramps, or a place to store all the fluid I'm gonna have to empty in order to even try it. Hell, I don't even really have a place to work on the damn thing. Major downer. 

In the midst of all this, I go and look at a place that will be available to rent the second week of June. It's owned by a woman named Marne, who manages the big drinking establishment in town, the Fairview Inn. I show up at her place, just a block over from the hostel and one down from Natasha and Tyler's cabin. The rental is a yurt, a type of tent that is slightly more solid and more house-like than camping tents. It's as big as a large room of a house, has heat and power, shares a cooking area with some other people living on the property, but includes access to a private full bathroom, washer/dryer, and Internet access. The rent is $550 a month. A cabin that was much farther out of town and didn't have water was being offered for $450 on Craigslist, so the value here was obvious to me. This is a town where about twenty percent of the summer population lives in camping tents. However, I have about 8 dollars in my pocket and I've been sleeping in my Jeep all week. I tell her at the time that I am interested, but it is entirely dependent upon me finding a job. There are two more potential renters that are coming to see the place, but because Holli is friends with Marne and put in a good word for me, she said she'd try and keep me at the top of the list. I'm stoked on the yurt, but still need to find a job before I can even think about a place to live. Luckily, by the end of the week some REALLY good news comes in: a job interview. The big lodge on the hill, this area's version of the Waldorf-Astoria, called me back after several of my phone calls and intrusive surprise visits. I go in and meet with Sara, the dining area manager, and interview for a position as a server. Things go well (I've always been a good interview) and I have a positive vibe, especially when she says she just needs to check my references and she'll get back to me after the long weekend. Up!

While this is happening, some guys from Poland who are staying at the Hostel are trying to make plans to take a train or a shuttle bus to Fairbanks. It's a five hour drive north from Talkeetna, and it's pretty expensive. When they change their minds and decide to go down to Anchorage instead, I tell them  that I'll drive them there myself for a hundred bucks and we can leave whenever they want. My thinking is that I can take the money they pay and have a professional plug the leak for me so I know it's done right. They love the idea of saving some money and giving it to someone they at least know a bit instead of some random transit company. My mood begins to improve even more. Until an hour later when they realize that none of them brought a drivers license so they won't be able to rent the car they were planning on getting and taking the drive around Alaska that they were hoping for. Damn. This is on Memorial Day, so when my phone rings I think it's either Natasha or someone from home calling to say hello. As it turns out, it's Sara from the lodge, she has managed to get through to everyone she needed to, and made her decision, and she'd like to offer me a job. I accept and she asks me to come by the next afternoon to begin training. Holy awesome, Batman! Up, up, up. I immediately call Marne, and tell her that I'll take the place whenever it's available. When she showed me around, we discussed payment and everything and she was quite amenable to working with me as far as when I could get her the money and pro-rating the first month, etc. This was all going to be a huge help since I had so little left in savings. I began to imagine finally settling in for real, not feeling like a transient anymore. The next day I went in for training, which seemed to go well. The place has been around for a while and they really have their act together. I was given an employee handbook, a server handbook, and a menu to learn. I was shown around a bit and filled out some paperwork. This all managed to take about four hours. Plans were made for more the next afternoon at the same time, one o'clock. I have a good feeling.

When I get back to the hostel, I find the Polish guys have discovered that one of them brought his license after all, and they want to go to Anchorage. I do the math in my head. It's about five. I need to empty my Jeep to make room for all their stuff, load them up, then a two hour drive to town, drop them off, find someplace to park and sleep, make it to the mechanic's by eight when they open, two hours to get the work done, back by noon, ready and able for training at one. Sounds great. If I have extra time I'll buy the clothes I'm gonna need for work. We hit the road. Turns out there is some major construction on the highway, so about fifteen extra minutes are added to the trip. Gotta consider that in the morning, but no biggie. Vehicle is cooperating, we're moving along, and just getting into Anchorage when I notice the temperature gauge is creeping up a bit to the hot side. It holds steady, but when we get to the place where the guys are staying there's smoke coming from under the hood again. We're at a backpacker's hostel, and I decide I'm gonna sleep here for the night instead of driving around looking for a place to park for the night. The guys (sorry, Adam, Pavel, and Dariusz) tell me that in addition to the hundred, they're going to pay for my stay. Very cool guys. I have to figure some stuff out on the computer, and they're going to walk around and find a place to eat and drink, but we plan to meet up later for a beer or two. After letting the engine cool, I check the fluid level and top it off, things seem right as rain again so I take the opportunity to drive to Target to get the stuff I need for work.

I will now take a brief interlude to describe an interesting side effect of the awful globalization of American big box style retail commerce. For the last few weeks I have felt...displaced. Obviously I'm a stranger in a strange place, and I don't know a lot of people around here. Walking around Target at 10:30 at night made me feel--well it may sound awful but it made me feel normal. It's kind of sad, I suppose, but it was comforting in a way that only the familiar can be. And it really brought me to a head space that I needed to be in after a week of such ups and downs.

So I get back to the backpacker hostel, the boys from Poland are still out and about, but I need to study a lodge menu because I'm being tested on it the next afternoon. Also, since I'm getting up early in the morning to be at the repair shop by eight, I need to get some sleep. The next morning I wake up at ten after six, an hour and a half before my alarm. This sometimes happens when I'm on edge. I get to the shop, have a brief discussion with the owner and then just give my keys over and put my faith in the professionals. I also place a call to the manager at the lodge and let her know that I'm in Anchorage at a repair shop with car trouble and might be a bit late. For my second day of work. Shit. Thankfully she's very understanding. So four hours and four hundred seventy dollars later, I have a new radiator. God damn it. This means more borrowing, more debt, and more evidence of not being able to stand on my own. This is not at all how I wanted to start out my victorious summer with the new job and new place in Alaska.

By the time I get back to Talkeetna I have managed to center myself. Sara, my supervisor, told me not to worry about coming in for training, that I can just make it up the next day. I think I've got the menu down pretty good. My radiator is at least fixed. I stop by the hostel to use the 'net and make some phone calls and Holli tells me that while I was gone Marne called and said I can move in within the week. My sister said that her kids finally got the stuffed animals I sent to them almost three weeks ago, and I get to talk to my nephew Nick a bit. I settle back into the town that is my adopted home for the summer, and watch Into the Wild with a bunch of foreign climbers and some of the guides. It really is an excellent movie, despite the crazy behavior it sometimes inspires. And I am kind of happy.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick