July 24, 26
I had resolved, however loosely, to be gentler on Roy, to not target him & lade him with the heft of my ancillary problems, make a scapegoat of him. There was a kind of guilt enwreathing my will, calling into suspicion any proclivity towards kindness in me. Who am I, I asked myself, to cast a stone? I have since decided that I am in fact the one who nearly regurgitates each time he enters his own front door. I am the one who spends literally hours each week cleaning up the speckled grease cast akimbo from his fry baby, plucking his used paper towels up from their haphazard repose on the floor, clearing the table of his detritus—all of it cloaked in the dusted fur that attends exposed grease—in order to sit down for a meal. Who listens with astonishment to his ceaseless flatulence. Who hears him clear his throat literally hundreds of times a day. Whose cilia may well be singed beyond use from the sweat-panted hygienic trainwreck that is my roommate. The full reach of this living arrangement has only recently dawned on me—how insidious the feeling of loathing one’s home can truly be. I do not exaggerate in writing that I have had to forcibly suppress my gag reflex upon entering the cabin on several occasions. This is something beyond the reach of simple kindness. I forgive myself my enduring disgust. My supervisor is making some calls to prospect another arrangement; I can't wait around for him to leave by any accord.
Beyond that I fill my time away from the cabin as fully as I can. Yesterday ran Bison Gulch again, achieving the summit ridgeline in winds that either slowed me nearly to stopping or conversely pushed me into unwilling sprints. This is the trail that ascends 4000 feet in less than two miles, so finding that kind of wind after that kind of exertion was somehow fitting. Talked to two military guys on the summit who were astonished I’d run the whole way, & then to a family on the way down that said they’d enjoyed watching me continue up & up. One doesn’t usually have an audience when trail running. Afterwards cleaned & headed in for a quiet night’s work. Had an email from the Fairbanksian who is organizing the August Bison Gulch race asking if I might want to aid in prospecting a longer route down towards Antler Creek from the ridgeline. & today feeling slow & wilted a bit; could not sleep past nine this morning, though I went to bed at three. Awakened with a deep & resonant cough. Roy blundering from bed to beeline to the bathroom & then straight back to snoring until noon, hungover from a bottle of whiskey he drank alone last night, apparently in some sloppy, lumbering tilt, judging by the disarray in which I found the kitchen upon returning home at two this morning. Switched to a post office box since my general delivery limit has expired. Thought a good deal without conclusion.
I begin to feel a kinship with Alaska, a profound dialogue with its landscape & its prevalent energies. Less of an interloper, more fully ingrained somehow. For my many hesitancies, I’ve at least not refrained from the land itself—its mountains, graveled & braided riverbeds, boreal forests in craggy & thick disorder. Its possibilities. While I was perched halfway down Cathedral I saw through binoculars two year-old grizzly cubs wrestling at play, now on their hind legs jawing one another’s throats, now rolling on the lichened tundra floor. I regarded them from a safe distance for maybe five full minutes, all of their captive joy, before the sow came to upbraid them & bid them follow, herself likely 600 pounds. They fell into line & trotted off, at first in perfect order, then rupturing into brief bouts of playfulness as they went, running towards one another, nipping the nape before retreating. It was, I think, perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen in the wild. Not because of an anthropomorphic sympathy, but because it was an exhibition of ordinary wonder. What a thing to see. What a thing to be, to see it.
& incidentally, the PO Box is 688, still in Denali National Park, AK, 99755, for those who might wonder.
***
Slept in after a busy night at work riddled with bears advancing on dumpsters left open at the visitor center. Had a call from an employee who could not leave the bathroom, pinned in by a territorial grizzly. Found the morning a swirling eddy of greysky & sloping spruce. Went for breakfast in Healy with Michael & came back to find Roy gone. All morning my voice has slowly been leaving me, even as my cough seems to be improving. Curious how the body intervenes, what it says in doing so. To speak or not to speak, & now there can be almost no question.
Beyond that I fill my time away from the cabin as fully as I can. Yesterday ran Bison Gulch again, achieving the summit ridgeline in winds that either slowed me nearly to stopping or conversely pushed me into unwilling sprints. This is the trail that ascends 4000 feet in less than two miles, so finding that kind of wind after that kind of exertion was somehow fitting. Talked to two military guys on the summit who were astonished I’d run the whole way, & then to a family on the way down that said they’d enjoyed watching me continue up & up. One doesn’t usually have an audience when trail running. Afterwards cleaned & headed in for a quiet night’s work. Had an email from the Fairbanksian who is organizing the August Bison Gulch race asking if I might want to aid in prospecting a longer route down towards Antler Creek from the ridgeline. & today feeling slow & wilted a bit; could not sleep past nine this morning, though I went to bed at three. Awakened with a deep & resonant cough. Roy blundering from bed to beeline to the bathroom & then straight back to snoring until noon, hungover from a bottle of whiskey he drank alone last night, apparently in some sloppy, lumbering tilt, judging by the disarray in which I found the kitchen upon returning home at two this morning. Switched to a post office box since my general delivery limit has expired. Thought a good deal without conclusion.
I begin to feel a kinship with Alaska, a profound dialogue with its landscape & its prevalent energies. Less of an interloper, more fully ingrained somehow. For my many hesitancies, I’ve at least not refrained from the land itself—its mountains, graveled & braided riverbeds, boreal forests in craggy & thick disorder. Its possibilities. While I was perched halfway down Cathedral I saw through binoculars two year-old grizzly cubs wrestling at play, now on their hind legs jawing one another’s throats, now rolling on the lichened tundra floor. I regarded them from a safe distance for maybe five full minutes, all of their captive joy, before the sow came to upbraid them & bid them follow, herself likely 600 pounds. They fell into line & trotted off, at first in perfect order, then rupturing into brief bouts of playfulness as they went, running towards one another, nipping the nape before retreating. It was, I think, perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen in the wild. Not because of an anthropomorphic sympathy, but because it was an exhibition of ordinary wonder. What a thing to see. What a thing to be, to see it.
& incidentally, the PO Box is 688, still in Denali National Park, AK, 99755, for those who might wonder.
***
Slept in after a busy night at work riddled with bears advancing on dumpsters left open at the visitor center. Had a call from an employee who could not leave the bathroom, pinned in by a territorial grizzly. Found the morning a swirling eddy of greysky & sloping spruce. Went for breakfast in Healy with Michael & came back to find Roy gone. All morning my voice has slowly been leaving me, even as my cough seems to be improving. Curious how the body intervenes, what it says in doing so. To speak or not to speak, & now there can be almost no question.
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