February 6
Woke up thinking about Thales, who famously fell into a pit as he was walking with his eyes upturned to the stars. Last night the auroras were snaking & fluxing, a limn of purple along the bottom of the green band, & then those vertical tears that shimmer & fade above the long arc below. To the south, meanwhile, the Milky Way like a bucket of soap water cast out over asphalt, the stars bright punctures in the ever-dark sky. It’s been some time since I stood slack-jawed staring at the firmament.
Driving home last night, we passed the metal sculpture of a team of dogs that lines the top of a gateway just next to my pull-out, silhouetted black against the surging green behind. It’s a structure like you see at the beginning of ranch roads, two huge spruce posts & one cross-beam, & in this case, it signifies passage into the Kingdom (all the land once or presently owned by now retired musher Jeff King). There was some small tug in me though, seeing it, knowing that everything in that tableau said home & home & home. The black spruce tops in relief, the swirling colors, the deep swatch of stars, & even the shapes of the dogs & the sled. As each new entry here seems to betray, I am caught off-guard almost daily by the richness & beauty of my surroundings. It plays, I know, like a tired old record you’ve heard too often, but I can’t say that it will stop any time soon. I wouldn’t will it so, anyway.
& dogs. It is Super Bowl Sunday, & I find myself captivated instead by the standings in the Yukon Quest. Maybe it’s that miniscule intimation of empathy, of knowing in some fraction of a way what it’s like to be on the runners. My time as a middle school football player for the esteemed Johnston Dragons was short-lived, to be sure, & absent any success (my one stand-out memory is being plowed over by an opposing team’s running back & finding myself unable to either breathe or get up of my own volition afterward). But my time as a musher is beginning, growing exponentially by the day. & though I’ve not run the team in almost two weeks now (which is sort of killing me), every day finds some new education, most of it second-hand, talking to Kristin about her trips & what she’s learned. & every day finds me thinking about the trail, rehearsing the next run. It would seem that there are only people who don’t really care about sled dogs & then people who are rabidly, voraciously, passionately fanatical. So it goes.
Thales maybe eschewed what was underfoot for what was overhead. I suppose I’ll have both, if it’s all the same.
Driving home last night, we passed the metal sculpture of a team of dogs that lines the top of a gateway just next to my pull-out, silhouetted black against the surging green behind. It’s a structure like you see at the beginning of ranch roads, two huge spruce posts & one cross-beam, & in this case, it signifies passage into the Kingdom (all the land once or presently owned by now retired musher Jeff King). There was some small tug in me though, seeing it, knowing that everything in that tableau said home & home & home. The black spruce tops in relief, the swirling colors, the deep swatch of stars, & even the shapes of the dogs & the sled. As each new entry here seems to betray, I am caught off-guard almost daily by the richness & beauty of my surroundings. It plays, I know, like a tired old record you’ve heard too often, but I can’t say that it will stop any time soon. I wouldn’t will it so, anyway.
& dogs. It is Super Bowl Sunday, & I find myself captivated instead by the standings in the Yukon Quest. Maybe it’s that miniscule intimation of empathy, of knowing in some fraction of a way what it’s like to be on the runners. My time as a middle school football player for the esteemed Johnston Dragons was short-lived, to be sure, & absent any success (my one stand-out memory is being plowed over by an opposing team’s running back & finding myself unable to either breathe or get up of my own volition afterward). But my time as a musher is beginning, growing exponentially by the day. & though I’ve not run the team in almost two weeks now (which is sort of killing me), every day finds some new education, most of it second-hand, talking to Kristin about her trips & what she’s learned. & every day finds me thinking about the trail, rehearsing the next run. It would seem that there are only people who don’t really care about sled dogs & then people who are rabidly, voraciously, passionately fanatical. So it goes.
Thales maybe eschewed what was underfoot for what was overhead. I suppose I’ll have both, if it’s all the same.
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