June 10

Arrived in Denali this afternoon, unpacked, talked with my roommate Roy (who I can’t help but think of as a 60 year old mix of Meatloaf & Stef’s uncle Ronnie) over some halibut & fries, showered in the shower-house, & here now in bed. In an actual bed. Legally. Two mornings ago I awakened at a pull-off in Yukon & within twenty yards of driving came across two healthy grizzlies grazing roadside. This morning, I awakened in the back of my truck outside of the surreal wooden gates of Pioneer Park, a historically themed amusement park in Fairbanks. I had fallen asleep, sort of, to thumping bass & teenage chatter, all the attendent sounds of people who aren’t aware someone is occupying, supine, a small sliver of space in the back of that adjacent truck. Who can blame them? The blacktop lot around me by morning had emptied but for two or three RVs at diagonals nearby. I brushed my teeth & spat into a garbage can. I walked past the whalegrey caboose in which president Harding made his voyage to Fairbanks a hundred years ago, past the looming white riverboat that half a century past drifted the Tanana, past a cabin restored from the infamous red light district, & into the bathroom where the night before I had been surprised while poised at the urinal to hear a woman’s voice apologize for its presence in the stall, followed by the sound of her violent vomiting. I had not washed my hands. At the truck again, having conspicuously warmed my water for coffee with the propane Coleman & sitting calmly with some yogurt & granola, I began to wonder at my life. This happens often. Drove to the visitor center for internet access while waiting for the coffee to steep. Wondered what precisely does happen to lost or misplaced urine samples. Then, after running along the Chena river, & after a brainstorming session about the best way to clean myself (sprinklers in front of the community center, a spigot behind a gas station, etc.), I decided simply to jump in. Glacial river-water flowing just south of the Arctic Circle is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a bit nippy. Only after submerging did I really take note that I was near an overpass. This was, I thought, as close to the feeling of actual homelessness as you have ever been. Afterwards, ate a pbj at a park with a sprawling meadow filled with sandhill cranes in their migration. Looked at a campsite. Went to a bookstore. Finally, got the call from my boss here informing me that my urine had been recovered & tested & approved, & here I am.

All of this regarding today, & not a whisper of the past week. Not a syllable about those 3000 miles, those unspeakably wonderful hours ripe with quick & nerve & heart & tear passed in Ft. Nelson, that hideous & tormenting feeling ripping through my heart & pith upon leaving, my seats empty, my dear fiancé driving south with my dear little girl in tow. What is left to beat in my own chest? How I was already in the habit of talking to her, & now how I turn to talk to Willa too & find an empty space. How I awaken & look for her curled beside me & find instead a half-completed crossword puzzle & a pen from some hotel I’ve never been to. How alone, I wonder, can I make myself. & just to answer, I move to a wilderness the size of Massachusetts. & as I write this, as if on cue, the baying of distant wolves cleaves the calm air. Where am I, that I am here? Who am I, that I am I? & where, where, where are you, my heart?

My fingers draw taut together over my eyes to stay the light. To sleep.