Returning

I've come back home on purpose, with purpose, and, perhaps not surprisingly, discovered the most profound pleasure in life...

I've found a wonderful freedom in choosing my own path home to Alaska:
to be myself,
to like what I like, 
to let others choose for themselves,
to say yes or no as the mood strikes,
to take the risks I want,
to learn from my losses,
to live each day in a way that feels right to me.

I have made a pact with myself not to shrink

for anyone.

Hard times have happened, and will happen again, but I've learned something over the last two years: I will recover. At 37 years old, I finally acknowledged the strength, passion, and wisdom within me to author my own story...and a damn good one it's turning out to be! 

One year ago, I drove the bare essentials of my life (including my son) in a tiny hatchback over 3000 miles of highway from California to Alaska, which was just a year after making that same trip in reverse...escaping from Alaska. Both trips were adventures beyond the horizon of my known universe and the limits of my emotional comfort zone. Both were giant leaps of faith and stubborn determination to get across the yawning chasm that separated me from the life I wanted to be living. My landings were those painful kind of affairs where the leaper just barely catches the edge of something solid on the other side of the gap, banging shins and forearms, and has to claw and scramble and heave oneself up over the edge to stable footing. I did it twice. 

Each leap took me six months to heal and another six months to feel really glad I'd done it.

And now I'm in a beautiful place in life where everything seems to have fallen into its proper place. Each self-affirming decision has created a "pay it forward" momentum that continues to cascade toward more positive happenings. The abundance of joy, affection, support, and gratefulness between myself, my son, and my former spouse is actually ridiculous! We are each finally being who we were meant to be and loving each other better for it.

I am gobbling up the long Alaskan days, the steep trails, the sunshine, the moments with friends, the informing encounters with new people, the late-night campfires, the live concerts, and every possible experience that catches my fancy. 

I feel awake and like life is all re-prioritized to suit my needs and adventurous desires. 

And while it may seem counter-intuitive, all this energy toward myself has actually freed my dearest ones to also pursue their heart's desires. For the first time in years, my boy and the man I once called "mine" are discovering their own pleasures, with vigor! And we all continue to support each other, probably more genuinely than we ever did before. 

So, I guess I'm here to say...I'm back, baby! And things are gonna be different from now on. Better. More real. More affirming. It's not always gonna work out, or feel good, but it's gonna be what I make of it. And when I feel out of sorts, like the choosing has gotten away from me, then I still find solace and focus in the great outdoors...the WAY OUTDOORS! And I learn to get my choices back.

My world can be set right by the moon rising over lavender-lit mountains, the flutter overhead of a bat at dusk, or the crackle of wood-fueled flames licking the night air and throwing sparks up to the stars.

This is a moment in time where I feel perfectly where I ought to be...and I want to create a reminder that it is possible. If I am willing to take the risks, to not hold back, to be my best self...truly lovely things can happen. They HAVE happened. Wherever I go from here, I'm grateful for each connection, every moment of vulnerability, all the opportunities I've had to test my mettle. I think things are just getting interesting.

Remodeling

PARDON MY ABSENCE

My life - and this blog - are undergoing a remodel!

But I'm still here and I still want to share my adventures with you...

I will return to sharing my adventures soon, but for now my energy is going into the labor of changing my environment to suit my needs. I've had so many pivotal experiences over the last ten months that I just couldn't find the time to write about it. And my sharing takes more brain and heart power than you might think, too. I pour over every word and contemplate my message. Even though I absolutely love writing about my passion for this journey, when I'm in the thick of it, sometimes it's not clear to me what the point is. And right now I am currently focusing so much attention inward, on building a new foundation that will support my healthy future, that I need extra time to rest and relax.

Here's what I can tell you now:

• I'm living in Alaska and redefining what this means to me while exploring with fresh eyes and an open heart.
• Some days I struggle and want to quit reaching for something better. But I don't quit. I keep getting up and trying something new.
• Being in Alaska means my son has both his parents within a stone's throw and we are all happy, healthy, and friendly with each other. This is a great thing.
• I am staying connected as best I can with my California friends and memories. They keep me focused on where I want to be.
• My efforts are supported by a crew of personal and virtual friends, for which I am so incredibly, fall-down-and-kiss-their-feet, thankful! I can't do this without you.

So, here I am.

Right here.

In the mess of change.

I'm thinking, feeling, designing.

I'm learning to love me.

From that love,

I can love others better.

Sometimes,

it doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes,

I get frustrated and disappointed.

Sometimes,

I'm lonely and tired.

And sometimes,

it comes together so beautifully

that I am filled with hope.

My adventure now is an internal one.

But soon, I'll be able to share again.

Soon.

Meet me here later...and we'll continue together.

Survival

I've begun an adventure to live 3000 miles away from my lifelong home, accompanied by my 13-year old son.  My husband remains in Alaska with my family on a multi-generational homestead where I grew up, while our son and I explore living in Northern California near his family.  I've traveled south to seek sun, heat, and new opportunities. Along the way, I'm sharing my journey about pursuing dreams, discovering what matters most in life, and finding the strength to be brave in the face of uncertainty.  For me, healing and strength are often found in simple pleasures and frequent communion with nature, so join me as we embark into the outdoors to reveal what's inside of us.

~

SURVIVAL

(keep breathing)

"Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi

It's not totally unfitting that today is the day that I feel relieved to be a survivor.  After all, for Americans in my generation, the date September 11th is forever marked in our memories as a reminder of the importance of surviving.  The instinct to survive and protect was etched in our psyche in 2001 due to acts of hatred, but our emotional take-away of that day is so often grounded in finding community amidst the suffering.  It was the kind of day that everyone remembered exactly what they were doing the moment they became aware of the tragic events happening in New York City, the needless and confusing deaths of innocent people at the hands of closed-minded individuals.  I remember picking up my infant son in my arms, while watching the tragedy unfold on TV, and feeling the need to protect him from some faceless threat.  I felt lucky that day to survive, to be near my family, and to be in Alaska, which seemed worlds away from danger, yet surprisingly vulnerable.

Thirteen years later, today, I feel grateful again to have come out on the other side of an emotional trial.  For the past five weeks, my son and I have lived three thousand miles from our safe place in Alaska, and from our family.  Thankfully, though, they still bring us comfort, and I am realizing the irreplaceable role they have always played in our lives.  As I negotiate my way through the hoops and obstacles of being a single-parent in a new place and with a new job, I am often overwhelmed by stress and responsibility.  Yesterday, I felt at an all-time low, ready to pack my bags and retreat home.  I was sure I would not survive the collapse of my resolve to see this schoolyear through in California.  The urge to return home was immense and near-debilitating.  As with all survival stories, though, I made it through my  crushing doubt and found the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep breathing in and out, until the day was done.  I reached out to my parents and found exactly the kind of support I needed to press on toward a more hopeful and stable place.  Hearing their empathetic and encouraging voices was the sustenance I needed to renew my resolve. Their humble acceptance of my decisions was enough to allow me to refocus my intentions.

I realized that, as my dad said, "the weather is nice somewhere in the world any day of the year, but family is only in one place; relationships can't be replaced."  The biggest question I came to California to contemplate, became clearer through my homesickness.  What is most fulfilling to me, nice weather or proximity to family? It seems that family satisfies something in my heart that weather can't do alone.  I'm far more social than I realized and quality time with loved ones fills a deep well in me even on the coldest days, whereas a perfectly pleasant day in outdoor paradise feels somewhat hollow without loved ones to share it with.  Only one month into my California adventure, this seems like an unfortunate epiphany to have, but I don't think so.  It is a step toward knowing myself better and knowing what I need to live a fulfilled life.  I don't think it is the last lesson to be learned in California, by far!  This is a lesson of great importance that will be further shaped by all the other lessons to come.  It is an answer which I am grateful to have, as I am grateful to have survived the emotional process it took to reach it.  Now, I keep moving forward to honor this event and count myself a survivor.  There is more to experience to come and more to be learned.

Know Me By Name

My name is Lindsey and this Alaskan shrub is known as Willow.

Familiarity is such a creature comfort, and not just for human creatures.  In the animal kingdom, creatures base their lives on familiar routines, environments, and relationships.  It is life ecology.  Animals adapt to their habitat through repetition over long periods of time to establish their niches for dwelling, traveling, eating, and reproducing.  Some animals become extremely specific in their routines, like the Giant Panda that eats ONLY bamboo, or Koalas that eat and live ONLY in eucalyptus trees, or the Bachmann’s Sparrow that lives ONLY in the branches of a pine tree recently affected by fire.  Home, even for animals, is a place of predictable circumstances, a mini-world of givens, where risk and uncertainty is minimized to create stability.  Comfort in the familiar is a universal instinct.

 

I married this man named Peter and we once sat next to an Alaskan river named the Little Susitna.

In the wild, a robin doesn’t simply up and decide one day, “Y’know, I don’t really feel like migrating this spring.  I’m gonna stay in Mexico this summer.  And while I’m at it, I’m sick of worms.  I’m going vegetarian and eating just berries.”  This change in familiar routine would have a huge ripple effect: imagine no robin song synonymous with misty spring mornings; picture robins ravaging the berry bushes rather than plucking worms out of the lawn; and consider the competition created between the robin and other berry-eating creatures (not to mention the population explosion of worms going uneaten).  Only humans make such decisions that utterly change our routines and habits so completely.  Some have even evolved a persistent nagging for change.  Routine of the daily variety is really not their thing.  But, deep down, on a primal level, they still crave something familiar amidst the newness.

 

Peter and I named our dog Samson, because we thought he would be strong,
 and our first kitten was named Nina, because she was a nincompoop.

I am one such human who has a penchant for change and has taken an opportunity to relocate to a completely foreign territory, where I am trying to carve out a new niche.  I’m a hitchhiker, a transplant, and an ex-patriot.  I am 3,000 long miles from the place I was born and raised, and from where I birthed and raised my own offspring.  I can count my lineage in the Alaskan ecosystem by generations, so the feeling of utter disconnection from my home habitat is overwhelming.  The thoughts Why did I come here? and What am I going to do? make for unsettling bedfellows each night when I close my eyes.  So, how do I learn to thrive in an unfamiliar habitat?  How do I ever feel comfort or familiarity again?

 

Our son we named Izak, which means laughter.

The only thing that keeps me grounded, makes me feel like I’m still on the same planet, is my family and the outdoors.  As for the outdoors, birds, butterflies, plants, and sunshine are my comfort food.  Food (especially fatty and starchy stuff) is also my comfort food - but that’s another blog.  Anyway, when I’m feeling the most out-of-sorts, I retreat to nature.  Maybe because it was my coping mechanism as a child, but the infinite intrigue and complexity of a wilderness always makes me feel better.  There is a certain kind of perfection in how all the elements of a forest work together and survive that makes me feel that everything is going to be okay.  There is predictability to the organization and occurrence of living organisms in a known ecosystem.  For instance, in the woods back home, I know I can find paper birch, quaking aspen, and white spruce growing out of an almost impenetrable tangle of grasses, wild roses, currents, horsetail, and 50 other shrub-sized plants vying for the endless summer sunlight.  I know that walking in the woods in Alaska requires a trail, or scratch-resistant pants (not to mention a good dose of mosquito dope). The composition of my northern woods feels right to me; it's predictable.  When my life doesn’t make sense, I go for a walk and am encouraged by the persistence and beauty of living things that I can call by name.  I think to myself, If that foxtail grass can grow out of poor soil and add its graceful splendor to the world with only the will to survive and adapt, then so can I.  

 

This is my favorite Alaskan place to explore, and it goes by the name Hatcher Pass.

But my new environment is not at all predictable to me. In Alaska, I know that if you want to see the stars, you need a down parka.  Consider this.  I grew up knowing that the sun never totally sets during the warm summer months.  Likewise, darkness goes together with cold winter temperatures - lots of dark and lots of cold.  Stargazing in Alaska, therefore, is an extreme winter sport, and only half the constellations could ever be learned. 

 

This is Alaska in Winter, which is not my favorite season, because there is too much of that white stuff called snow.

Now that I’m in California, it’s a whole different ball game.  On a recent camping trip with Chrysalis Charter School (my new employer), our middle-school science teacher gave a late-night astronomy lesson that blew my mind!  Up on the slopes of Mount Lassen, without the detriment of light pollution, the Milky Way materialized before my eyes with at least a dozen constellations I’d never seen before.  And I didn’t even need to wear a jacket or hold my breath to prevent the ice fog from obscuring my view.  Kids lay in the scrubby grass on their backs all around me and identified the circumpolar constellations that rotate around the North Star like the hour hand of a clock: Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Draco, and the Swan (or Northern Cross).  I watched Scorpio and his Red Giant “heart” rise like the sun over the silhouetted tops of Lodgepole Pine trees as Leo the Lion chased the moon along the same elliptical path behind the opposite horizon. This knowledge made the night sky over California more familiar to me.  I felt comforted.

 

This is familiar Alaskan weather, which I can't do anything about.

Naming everything new to me is one way I’ve tried to discover my niche and find familiarity.  We need names to communicate and to relate to objects in our environment.  Native names of natural landmarks are often adopted by incoming cultures in order to speed familiarity.  I also seek to learn the local knowledge, to adopt it, and thereby feel more at home. Guided walks with the California Native Plant Society provide me with just the kind of knowledge that I desire.  The surprising bonus is that I meet other people like me who are making this place their new home and are also looking for ways to connect.

 

Here I am in Northern California, next to Cliff Lake, trying to learn the names of new plants.

 Naming is like claiming.  If I can identify something by name, I own that knowledge and somehow it allows me to take the thing into myself and make it a part of me.   By giving something a name, I own it.  Did you ever bring home a stray animal and hear your parent’s say, “Don’t name it, because you aren’t keeping it.”  They knew that if you put a name on something, you were responsible for it.  Family is like that, too.  We give our children names that we hope will imbue our greatest desires into their lives.  We look backward to past family members to glean characteristics from their names and nicknames.  We cling lovingly to all that is familiar - and familial.  Don't these two words have the same root?  We learn about our history through family, and sometimes we understand ourselves and the paths we've chosen better because of knowing them.

This is part of me.  My paternal grandmother claimed Fairbanks
as her home when she was still called by her maiden name in,
Mary Siebenthaler, in the 1920's.

So, now I'm claiming responsibility for the path I've named for myself and for the new environment I'm adapting to.  I'm owning up to my choices and doing my best to act natural.  I'm following in the footsteps of my adventurous ancestors.  However, it is still foreign to me and more than a bit scary.  I know I've left ripples in the wake of leaving my familiar niche, like a bird erupting from a lake to take flight, but I've committed to this adventure for a reason and I aim to see where it leads.

My maternal grandmother, Ellen, was a brave woman who learned to call Alaska home.  Here she holds a King salmon and looks natural doing it!

I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to make such a departure from the familiar.  In fact, the genesis of my deep-rooted familiarity with Alaska began with exactly this kind of journey to a foreign land.  If my maternal grandpa had never mustered the guts to leave his home (and, temporarily, his family) in Colorado, then I never would have known Alaska.  He, like me, took a job in a far-away place for a year before moving his whole family up north together.  Their homestead adventure must have been fraught with uncertainty and challenges, but it endowed a rich legacy of independence and camaraderie in their descendants.  I am grateful for my grandpa's bravery and adventurous spirit.  My dad's parents also made the same journey to Alaska, though they did it separately, before they met, and about three decade's earlier.  Had any one of those people opted to shy away from the risk of a grand adventure, my parents would never had met and I would not exist.  I feel privileged to have some of my grandparents' intrepid spirit running through my veins and I'm choosing to honor it.  My name is Lindsey and I am a highly-adaptable creature with long migratory routes scoping out a new habitat.  Now that you've begun to get to know me, let's go on this adventure together!

This journey into Alaska belongs to my grandparents.  My journey continues from here.

The Chrysalis

Change is hard.  Even for someone like me who really likes change.

The other night, I crawled into bed after dark and glanced over at the photos of my family I keep on the nearby table.  I had just the light on my cell phone to see by.  As I shone the LED on their two-dimensional faces, I suddenly felt homesick and longed for a strong hug from each of them.  I imagined the sinewy squeeze of my 13 year-old's lanky arms and the broad embrace of my bear-huggable husband.  I then found myself switching the light on and off, like Tom Hanks did in the movie Castaway.   When I turned off the light, I missed their faces, so I turned it back on so they would reappear.  It brought me some comfort reassuring myself they were still there.  Then I remembered that I wasn't stranded on a desert island with a volleyball for a friend, so I used my phone to call them.

I have been working at my new job in California, at Chrysalis Charter School, for a little more than a week now, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Some days I feel completely overwhelmed trying to comprehend all that is required of me, but other days I feel like I might, just might, be able to do a satisfactory job of filling my new role.  My role, by the way, is to manage the technical office operations of an outdoor science-based charter school for grades K-8.  Chrysalis was the first charter school in Shasta County and I'm taking over the job of someone who has been with the school since the beginning almost 20 years ago.  Every time I am introduced to someone affiliated with the school, I hear the statement, "Wow! You have some really big shoes to fill…"  And it's true!  There's no way I can be everything that my predecessor has been to the school.  She's like the school mother who knows the story of every child who ever passed through the doors.  She and the school have grown together for 17 years.  I can't compete with that, nor do I want to.  She has nurtured the school like her own family and is now retiring her position, bravely releasing the school (and herself) to a new phase of life.  Coincidentally, she began working at the school when her son entered his eighth grade year (just like me and my son).  Now, I face the task of helping envision the future of this school and equipping it with some organizational tools to continue being successful.  Likewise, the original founder of the school is also retiring his position next year as school administrator, passing the torch to a highly qualified and capable woman who is also the mother of a young Chrysalis student. Everyone at the school is facing this new phase with surprising optimism and hopeful expectations.  It seems that Chrysalis really lives up to its name by embracing inevitable change.

In nature, a chrysalis is formed by a caterpillar when it is ready to go through metamorphosis, the most amazing and complete transformation undertaken in the animal kingdom.  The chrysalis is built by a juvenile butterfly caterpillar with silken strands and a thick, spit-like substance that hardens into a tough shell.  It's like a bivouac bag (one person tent) the caterpillar tucks itself into and zips up all the way to the top.  A cocoon is a similar woven encasement made by moths. The result of metamorphosis is akin to a plump, naked baby curling up for a long nap and unfolding as a fully grown adult wearing an Armani suit and driving a Ferrari.  In fact, the metamorphosis of a caterpillar is actually more amazing than that, because what emerges from the cocoon doesn't remotely resemble what went in.  It's more like the change from a baby to a rainbow striped hot air balloon.  Bada-bing, bada boom!  It's the magic of the chrysalis!

There are other key features involved in chrysalis formation: wide dispersal from home territory, secure attachment to a base, camouflage, and defense techniques.  The caterpillars leave their source of food to enter metamorphosis in a solitary location, because it increases their chances of hiding from predators.  The camouflage enhances the success of survival while in the chrysalis, mimicking a leaf or leaf bud.  The defenses of the chrysalis can be quite elaborate, such as spines, involuntary wiggling when disturbed, or even squeaking sounds emanating from tiny air holes to scare away predators.  Sometimes, ants help guard the chrysalis.  If all goes to plan, a magical transformation occurs within the chrysalis as a tiny creature turns inward and somehow finds within itself another creature entirely, which it allows to burst through its skin and embark on a new phase of life.  The fat, crawling, leaf-eating machine gives its life to become a graceful, flying, ephemeral nymph.

But I wonder about the caterpillar.  How does it know to change?  Is it afraid?  Does it ever hesitate to enter that second phase of life, questioning its instinct to build the chrysalis?  Is it aware of what will happen when it enters the chrysalis?  Does it have any idea what life awaits it on the other side of its transformation? Is the transformation difficult for the caterpillar? Is it painful?

I wonder these things because I feel like I am forming my own chrysalis.  I am wrapping myself in new threads of experience: a new job, new co-workers, new environment, new climate, new social circles, and new routines.  I'm sticking all the threads together with my sweat and tears.  And I am missing my home base, I am scared of what will become of me, I am unsure of what I'm doing, and I have no idea what kind of life will emerge from my metamorphosis.  I can also assure you that this transformation, for me anyway, is fraught with difficulty and pain. But it is also graced with moments of beauty and inspiration.

If I could talk to a caterpillar and a butterfly, I would ask a lot of questions.  How do you know what to do?  Is it scary to be something different, to suddenly be an air dweller where you used to crawl on land?  What does it feel like to unfold your wings for the first time and feel them expand?  How do you learn to fly and choose your favorite flower?  Do you ever miss your other form or regret the change?  Is the change ever so hard you feel like giving up?  Obviously, natural instincts play a major role in the behavior of caterpillars and butterflies, and I envy that.  I know that somewhere down deep, that I am probably following my own instincts, acting on my own internal drive to survive and serve my intended purpose.

At the Chrysalis school where I work, I have witnessed former students return to thank their teachers for helping them transform into new, healthy, and confident beings.  The philosophy of learning through nature frees children to discover the unique qualities within themselves.  The children are open, caring, and thoughtful.  I am touched by daily accounts of  how the Chrysalis environment nurtures change and growth, especially in kids who face the biggest challenges.  In spite of my homesickness, I feel grateful  to be in a place that so lovingly embodies the process of metamorphosis, that views it as a natural step toward becoming more ourselves.  My hope is that something as beautifully purposeful and instinctual as a butterfly emerges from this time spent in my own chrysalis.

Creating an Island

Trailside wisdom.

A couple years ago, when I was interning as a Naturalist away from home, I discovered a way to make myself comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings.  Inspired by some deep nurture-craving instinct, I created myself an island.  The shores of my personal island began as the edges of the borrowed bed I slept in.  I put clean sheets on it, replaced their pillows with my own, and piled all my belongings from home at my feet.  With all that was familiar nearby, I felt more safe and secure.  It was my home base.  I reached out from my island via the telephone and the TV remote, which I used to call family and watch movies.  I found the feel-good flick Two Weeks Notice in my hosts' collection and watched it every day for a week just to reinforce the familiarity and sense of peace that came with a guaranteed happy ending.  Plus, it was a humorous distraction from my worries.  I ventured out from my island only to forage for food, go to the bathroom, and report to work.  During the first few days, the bed was a mental and emotional oasis where I retreated at every opportunity to restore my sense of security.  Eventually, with time and exploration came confidence, and my island expanded to other rooms, other homes, and eventually to the entire town.  By the end of the summer, I was no longer afraid of my new surroundings and even felt personal attachment to some of my favorite places.

My island habitat in Redding, California.  Not bad, right?

The evolution of my island is much like the evolutionary ecology of real islands.  The earliest inhabitants of an island are the smallest creatures, like microbes and insects that float in on the wind and water, or are carried there.  They are followed by plant seeds, birds, and other animals that may "raft" to the island by accident.  The contents of my comfort-island also start small: a photo of loved ones, fresh-smelling soap, favorite snacks, and maybe a book.  Then I collect bits and pieces of information from observation to start drawing a map of my island, getting a lay of the land.  Over time, animals and people start to "raft" into my experience and become part of the unique ecology.  As with island theory, the size of your island and its proximity to the mainland has a big influence on how many and what kind of species you will collect.  The bigger your island, more things will land on it.  And the closer your island is to other inhabited places, the more likely it is that things will find their way to you.

Decorating my island in California with familiar things and a bit of loveliness.

This week, I set up my island in Redding, California.  If you're following my story, you know I have ended up here to start a new job and possibly a new future for my family.  My island is where its all going to begin.  Even though I've been to Redding a dozen times before, this time is different.  This is not a vacation. It is a long-term experiment to see if I can survive a new environment.  Under those conditions, the familiar landscape of Northern California felt strangely ominous to me when I arrived.  As I explained before, change can cause a kind of fear that puts everything in a shadowed light that makes me want to retreat.  But, I know that if I can follow the advise of Benjamin Mee and exhibit "just 20 seconds of just insane courage" that I can get through my moments of panic and keep moving forward.  So, I do.

Sunshine and a green smoothie = familiar comforts

As before, my island began with my bed.  I put on clean sheets, set up photos of loved ones, put my suitcases within arms reach, and dug out my personal copy of Two Weeks Notice.  Yes, I watched it.  And I watched it again the next night with my sister-in-law and her two daughters.  It just works for me.  Thankfully, because Redding is not completely foreign to me, my fears began to dissipate pretty quickly.  I fell into familiar routines with my sister-in-law's family (my hosts) and had relatively few panic attacks over thoughts about my husband and son being 3000 miles away.  I avoided thinking too far ahead into the future and overwhelming my fragile sense of security.  I talked to my loved ones often and Skyped so I can see their faces.  My island of comfort expanded.

Some of the species inhabiting my island.  They provide a tasty breakfast!

As I look around me and observe the new surroundings of this island, I am beginning to appreciate all it has to offer.  I relish the warmth of the sun that penetrates at this latitude.  I savor the edible abundance of organic produce at the grocery store and at corner fruit stands.  I marvel at the diversity of insects, animals, plants, and landscapes I can observe on a five mile bike ride along the Sacramento River.  I've landed in nature-nerd heaven!  I'm cataloguing all that I see and experience to build a map of my new territory.  I take note of places to avoid and places to revisit.  The Sacramento River Trail is definitely a place to revisit, while it's still aflutter with butterflies and wildflowers in bloom.

Exploring the area by bike.

My island is rapidly being populated and expanding.  There are people on my island that I like and, most importantly, I like myself.  I'm feeling optimistic and creative…safe in my own skin.  I look forward to seeing how my island develops and what new and wondrous alchemy comes from it.

Leaving Alaska

As of today, I've left the homestead.  I'm on a journey of self-discovery and exploration that will take my family into new frontiers this next year.  About four weeks ago I received an offer of a job in Redding, California, that was too good to pass up…so I took it.  I've pined for the warmth and openness of more southern latitudes for over a decade, but refused to make the move without the consent of my loved ones.  This year, with the theme of "bravery" as my banner, my son on the cusp of high school, and my husband as encouraging as ever to seek my potential, the timing seemed just right.

Exploring other places has always been exciting to me…and more fun when done with someone I love!

I’d like to think that I get my gypsy tendencies and ambitious spirit from my late Grandpa Kink (rest his pioneering soul).  He traveled from Loveland, Colorado, to Anchorage, Alaska, almost 70 years ago to take a job on Elmendorf Air Force Base with his twin brother, Mutt.  He was newly discharged from the Marines after World War II, newly wed to his childhood sweetheart, and newly a father.  He and his brother did odd jobs on the military base for a year before he drove his wife, young son, and all their belongings up the unpaved Alaska-Canada Highway to start a new life in the “Last Frontier”.  By 1950, my grandparents were building new roads and proving-up on a 120-acre homestead in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.   His decision to move his family to the unknown wilds of Alaska shaped the lives of their three children, seven grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren, who also anchored their roots in the iron-rich soil of those homestead woods.  Without intending it, he created a legacy to which all his descendants became deeply, almost inextricably, bonded. 

Like me, my son spent his tender years roaming the Alaskan homestead.

Alaska is in my blood like DNA, passed down through the generations.  In summer, I traipsed through the moose-inhabited woods and ate puckery-sour highbush cranberries, picnicked under the spruce boughs with my younger brother, smacked the bloodthirsty mosquitos by the hundreds, and played house in the gravel pits excavated to build our driveways.  In winter, I watched the thermometer dip to 30 below, made icicles into lollipops, stood shivering at the bus stop in the pitch dark with my shoulders around my ears, spent endless hours entertaining myself indoors with LEGO’s and pencil drawings, and reanimated my frozen fingers and toes against the electric baseboard heaters after playing in the snow.  My entire life is interwoven with threads of Alaskan experience that are not only dear to me, but part of me.  My paternal grandparents have history in Alaska dating even further back to the interior gold rush booms of the 1920’s.  And, yet, I yearn for things Alaska can’t offer.

I'm a product of Alaska, that's unchangeable, but where do I belong?

Today, I began a journey reversing the ones my grandparents took.  I left Alaska, bearing south, wondering if I’m headed toward a new legacy of my own.  I travel solo toward a job in the far-off place of Redding, California.  I leave my husband and son behind, temporarily, in order to test the terrain of a new landscape and lifestyle in the golden state.  I go to Redding because my husband’s family is there, and I value the bond of relations too much to deprive myself, or my child, of them completely.  I go there because I dream of bike rides in November, of sunshine that lingers longer than a week at a time, of heat that penetrates as deeply as the chill of Alaska, of stargazing without need of a parka, of roads to curious sights branching in every direction all the way to the coast.  In practical terms, I look forward to meaningful work in collaboration with nature (thank you California greenies!) and giving my son new opportunities to learn and grow in a different environment.  I hope that I can tap into Grandpa Kink’s ingenuity and endurance to create a new homestead for my family, a place that fulfills our dreams, under the tall trees of a small mountain town.  Grandpa always said he didn’t want the land he settled to become a burden, a ball and chain around our ankles, holding us back from where we were meant to be.  I’d like to think he’d be proud of me.

The woods and I commune with each other.

A while back, I had a dream in which I sat in my grandpa’s small kitchen, across the table from him, talking about the future.  I was helping him fry his breakfast in an old cast-iron skillet with leftover grease and we were sharing saltine crackers (totally a grandpa thing).  Though I don’t remember the dialogue exactly, I remember vividly the feeling of the dream.  He was encouraging me.  He explained to me how he had taken a risk coming to Alaska and that I shouldn’t be afraid to take risks, too.  He made me feel strong and capable and like anything was possible.  Basically, his philosophy was that no one ought to follow in the footsteps of another, including him.  I needed to make my own path and he believed I knew just how to do it.  The dream was a revelation to me.  I felt a special bond with him after that, despite that he had passed away years earlier.  His presence in the dream was real and relevant and just like him.

Children often follow in our footsteps, wherever we lead them.

I do not leave Alaska now on a whim, but rather a wave.  The swell of my desires increased over the years, recently crashing upon my shore in a series of circumstances that appeared to be the undeniable break that I needed to launch out on this adventure. I do not know exactly what is in store for my family and me but I believe in us.  I believe we love each other and want the best for each other, and nothing bad can come of that.