April 11, 12
Coming now to a close, this shaky, awkward & illuminating day. From sunrise to the sunset that only now feathers its last lights, a roll call of friends & family calling to wish me well, taking the shine off the loneliness. Such deep & enduring gratitude for these continued gestures from those I love, those whose steps rhyme with mine even over countless miles. & so. I survived it intact. One episode of inconsolable weeping, but that is to be expected. After all, I spent my thirteenth birthday in shambles, accosted by the malingering idea inherited from my Jewish friends in Ohio that my childhood was forfeit & that I was, from that point forward, a man. This, somehow, easier to bear. Another bit of data on a laundry list of exhausting items of greater urgency, I’d say. Had the pleasure of speaking however briefly with my grandparents, Grandma suggested knowingly that it was the Cherokee in me that caused me to roam like I do. I like that. The notion that there is encrypted in my blood this relentless compulsion. That my heart lub-dubs directives like some rusting compass. North. Northwest. How am I to change what courses in my veins, metronomes my very pulse? Lub-dub, lub-dub. Run the fuck away. Seek shelter immediately. Etcetera. & of course it preoccupies my thoughts almost constantly anymore, the why & how of my stutteringly nomadic life. How I would anchor, root down, let be be the end of be. How I know what carriage I tow, what precious little ever stays behind.
***
The evening that lasts forever, the sun a lumbering thing, torpid disc slung sluggish over the paling sky. It will outlast me today, exhausted from nothing at all. A hike earlier west of town, coming first upon a gargantuan moose, its fur nettled grey about its mane, its eyes steady on us while we backed away, Willa leashed, twenty yards away. Calving season can render them fairly aggressive—more injuries stem from man’s contact with moose afoot than with bears down here. Pin it to population or habit—a bear will scurry from sound, while a moose couldn’t care less for trespass unless it nears the calves. Down here, I am told, in this sliver of semicircular lowland, we have namely black bears. Past the ridges on any side of town, the grizzlies & brown bears are in preponderance. During the hike today we came upon a broad meadow cut through by a creek in rapid runoff, maybe two acres across from one treeline to the next, a low foot-bridge of lumber scrap nailed hastily together leaning over it. As soon as the meadow opened Willa balked, her eye intent on something against the far trees. I know her reactions well enough by now to gauge in them fear or plain interest, & there was fear in her. A moose she’d start after, a deer whine & yip, a porcupine or raccoon pull at her lead. So far, I am only aware from experiences in Colorado & Montana respectively that she fears lions & bears. (Go on, sing the refrain, it suits us both). I didn’t spot anything, but it gave me pause. This is different country up here. We made quiet retreat along other paths, listening to the birds readying for spring, the whooshing of a raven’s wing flapping feet overhead in flight, the piercing call of the eagle hovering motionless to the north. Nothing of incident, but a kind of caution anyway, to one already over-cautious. Odd how fear can penetrate me at times, along certain hikes or runs, when in environments more remote I can as often be free of it entirely.
So another day settles into rest. I suppose it ought to be dawning on me that I live here by now, that Alaska is my home, my itinerary clear. Certain days we feel the breath in things suspiring about us, or coeval with our own. Others, a glass seems to split us from our worlds, opaque & dim, allowing only a removed & distant glimpse at the empyreal that limns its other side. Not as if we had dreamed the day ourselves, but as if we were lobotomized characters in some other’s dream, blurred scratches in the peripheries that moved only because they had to in order to support the grander scheme. Well, so it goes. Yesterday took a toll, held breath, anxious bird. Today its slow exhale. I can forgive myself that much.
***
The evening that lasts forever, the sun a lumbering thing, torpid disc slung sluggish over the paling sky. It will outlast me today, exhausted from nothing at all. A hike earlier west of town, coming first upon a gargantuan moose, its fur nettled grey about its mane, its eyes steady on us while we backed away, Willa leashed, twenty yards away. Calving season can render them fairly aggressive—more injuries stem from man’s contact with moose afoot than with bears down here. Pin it to population or habit—a bear will scurry from sound, while a moose couldn’t care less for trespass unless it nears the calves. Down here, I am told, in this sliver of semicircular lowland, we have namely black bears. Past the ridges on any side of town, the grizzlies & brown bears are in preponderance. During the hike today we came upon a broad meadow cut through by a creek in rapid runoff, maybe two acres across from one treeline to the next, a low foot-bridge of lumber scrap nailed hastily together leaning over it. As soon as the meadow opened Willa balked, her eye intent on something against the far trees. I know her reactions well enough by now to gauge in them fear or plain interest, & there was fear in her. A moose she’d start after, a deer whine & yip, a porcupine or raccoon pull at her lead. So far, I am only aware from experiences in Colorado & Montana respectively that she fears lions & bears. (Go on, sing the refrain, it suits us both). I didn’t spot anything, but it gave me pause. This is different country up here. We made quiet retreat along other paths, listening to the birds readying for spring, the whooshing of a raven’s wing flapping feet overhead in flight, the piercing call of the eagle hovering motionless to the north. Nothing of incident, but a kind of caution anyway, to one already over-cautious. Odd how fear can penetrate me at times, along certain hikes or runs, when in environments more remote I can as often be free of it entirely.
So another day settles into rest. I suppose it ought to be dawning on me that I live here by now, that Alaska is my home, my itinerary clear. Certain days we feel the breath in things suspiring about us, or coeval with our own. Others, a glass seems to split us from our worlds, opaque & dim, allowing only a removed & distant glimpse at the empyreal that limns its other side. Not as if we had dreamed the day ourselves, but as if we were lobotomized characters in some other’s dream, blurred scratches in the peripheries that moved only because they had to in order to support the grander scheme. Well, so it goes. Yesterday took a toll, held breath, anxious bird. Today its slow exhale. I can forgive myself that much.
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