10/26/14 Train from Anchorage to Talkeetna

Despite the early morning departure, drunken revelers in full Halloween costume fill my train car. Not quite in the mood for their unapologetic reverie, I retreat to the dining car.

Silver landscapes slide by my window – snowfields boxed in by white-capped mountains, rivers gray and still as steel, pale slivers of fog stream between stunted evergreens.

“Moose on the left! Moose on the left!” says the conductor.

I swivel my head to catch sight of mama moose and almost full-grown calf galloping away from the tracks - that odd gait that looks more like falling down but still seems to move the beasts along awfully fast.

I order a signature scramble, which arrives as a glorious heap of eggs, bacon, potatoes, onions and cheese. The concoction sends off a delicious steam than fogs my window and turns the world outside a lighter shade of dreary.

Back in Seattle, my husband’s truck won’t start. I didn’t think to leave behind the keys to my car. His anger sparks and we volley back and forth in texts. He rails against my late-paying clients, about our apparent poverty. When he says that all I do is stroke male egos for a living, I swear at him and tell him not to text me again until he calms down and is ready to apologize.

I put my phone to silent and try to ignore it, shoveling big spoonful of cooling breakfast into my mouth. My phone thrums and vibrates. A quick glance at the messages tell me I still don’t want to talk to him, so I put my phone on airplane mode. I can still snap pictures of the scenes outside, but I can now pretend that this little world around me is all that exists.

I hop off the train at Talkeetna, a small town that serves as base camp to Denali. At the river park, the ice slides by in the water making a sucking scraping sound. Cheeks red with cold and fingertips starting to tingle, I make my way to my log cabin, drop my backpack and call my husband. We growl at each other first, but soon soften and yield. We manage to end the call with love; such is the luxury of a young marriage.

At dark, I steal away to the Fairview Inn bar, chat with bearded men, order a $5 local stout and retreat to tall table to capture lines in ink. When the man in a flannel shirt hauls in a stand-up bass, I know this is going to be a good night. A flyer on the wall says that a girl will sing – Hannah Yoter. My guess is she’s the brunette in the corner with the red lipstick the earrings that dangle. That’s about as dressed up as you get here – aside from my person, with my carefully contoured make-up, manicure and white furry vest. It suddenly dawns on me how ridiculous my fitbit is here. At least I had the good sense to order a local beer instead of a red wine. Of course, later I want a bourbon, but a smart girl paces herself.

In the span of a single song, new people have packed this bar wall to wall. My quiet writing retreat transformed into party place. I feel so conspicuous with my tall table to myself and my journal open before me. The barkeep has removed the big round tables from the main floor. I watch a girl standing on the edge, balancing a drink in each of her upturned palms. I should leave. I’m not really a party person. Or a crowd person. Or a girl alone in a party bar person. I jostle the young people around me for space to put my coat back on.

Miss Yoter starts in on a Doc Watson song that I love and stuns me still. Doc Watson? She follows with “Valerie” and I take my coat back off and hang it on my chair.

The violinist’s girlfriend asks to join me. She’s alone, save for her new boyfriend on the stage. I watch the singer moon at the violinist, the violinist moon at his girlfriend, and his girlfriend jump into the arms a yellow-bearded man that appears out of nowhere and yells her name. The violinist looks everywhere except for at his girlfriend. The singer smiles, takes her voice a little lower.

A young bush pilot buys me a Crown Royal. The second time his hand touches my back, I turn and face him full on. “I am about the farthest thing from single a girl can get. Sorry.”

“Damn,” he says. “Oh well!”

“I’m sure there are lots of single girls here. Saturday only comes once a week. I won’t feel bad if you go talk to someone else.”

“I’m talking to you! Cheers!”

When the band breaks, we chat about choosing life in Alaska, about reading Into the Wild, about how sometimes the things that seem the most insane to others are the most sane to you. He shows me pictures of his plane, pretty little thing painted blue and white, with a name I’ve sadly forgotten.

We’re interrupted by two brunettes who want to know if the book on my table is a guest book and if they should sign it. Yes, I say, you should definitely write in this book. Here’s what I find when I check the pages later:

We’re here!

We’re queer!

The Hulk sisters wuzz herr!

Their names are Kelly and Chelsea. From Palmer. I tell them my name is Kelsye and they scream in delight. Kelly composes a secret handshake on the spot, ending will a finger wiggling move she calls salmon spawning.

“Salmon spawning sisters forever!” Chelsea takes a staggering, half-step back, right into the arms of the bush pilot.

I slip out unnoticed, hunting aurora borealis. A faint emerald glow appears on the Northeastern horizon, rising as though green steam from the black forest. If it reaches the intensity so often seen in photographs tonight, it won’t happen for many hours. I wrap my arms around my chest and walk back to my cabin under a sky crowded with stars.

10/27/14 Talkeetna to Anchorage

I take the once a week train back to Anchorage. The members of yesterday’s Halloween party stand like zombies on the platform, red-eyed and remarkably quiet. A few minutes before scheduled departure, a pretty little blue and white plane buzzes the depot, tips it’s wings. I leap, wave and whoop. The pooped partiers send icicle sharp glares my way. A woman still wearing her curly Victorian wig, but with ski parka instead of gown, puts her hand on her head and whimpers.

I laugh and leap and wave again as the plane loops around. This is my life right now!

This is my life right now.

Darkness falls in Alaska. When I look out the train window, my own reflected image blurs into the shadowed landscape. The evergreens are scrubby here, as though malnourished dwarves compared to the towering giants of my beloved Washington. Birch trees stretch tall, like naked white legs standing on overgrown lawn.

My trip will come to a close. I must exit solitude and kneel again at the altar of my computer. Calendars. Meetings. Deliverables. A gnawing terror scrapes at my heart. My official work in Alaska done days ago, I could return home tomorrow, but I choose to stay a few more days to prolong the strange. I must work, connected to the Internet and clicking away at the my laptop at the far end of the hostel dining table. But when work ends, no dogs will whimper for food, no kids will text for pick-up, no laundry will lay about in piles for me to ignore.

Instead, I have a date with my new Alaska friends to go to a roadhouse that specializes in bacon and bourbon. In other free hours I will layer on faux fur and quilted down, pull on gloves and boots, head out to wander down frozen streets. I will take my meals in cafes where I will order local standards unknown to me (reindeer sausage?) and drink countless cups of coffee from thick-walled ceramic mugs.

Suddenly it is dark, dark in Alaska. An inky black presses against the train window. Forward motion may only be assured by the bump and sway of the rail car. We may have launched into a Miyazaki film, the train rolling through a tunnel into the populous spirit world for all that I know. A pleasing sensation.

10/28/14 Anchorage

Back in Anchorage, I fail intentions to wake early to catch up on email and sleep a full eleven hours. My anxious mind and unceasing ambition make it so I can rarely rest completely. Sleeping late is out of the question. Naps, though highly desired, end up fitful and unsatisfying. Yet in Alaska, I have found sleep. Even with the time zone change, I sleep through my alarm. Come afternoon, I may lay back down and slumber another hour or three.

The girl sharing my bunkroom at the hostel is a champion sleeper. I wonder if it’s her gravity pulling down my eyelids, and pinning me to my bunk. All rockets must fire before I may break orbit and escape our warm room.

I take a late breakfast at Gwennie’s Old Alaska café – the place where they leave the entire pot of coffee on my table. Glorious. Turning to client work, I open my journal to a blank page and mark down my task list. A chorus of opinions negotiates in my mind, padding and stripping my to-do list. Anxiety gnaws at my stomach. How will I get this all done? My hard-earned peace from this long, wandering weekend slips away from my spirit with frightening speed. Panicked, I sit straight, tell myself to breath. Look around.

Prince’s “Doves Cry” plays on the speakers positioned behind the stuffed bear and fox diorama. Two grizzled, bearded men at the corner table mumble the words and bob their heads.

I smile. This is my life. This is my life.

---

A few select photos from my trip to Alaska...

 

I fail being alone.

Camper in the woods – just my dogs and me. The fates occupy all members of my immediate family with business trips and family trips. My mother grants me the use of her splendid white camper perched on white steed of a Chevrolet. I retreat to an abandoned corner of a state campground with one purpose – I will finish my book proposal revisions.

The transition from racing publishing diva to quiet, thoughtful writer does not go well. I’m a wreck. I don’t want to start working. I do everything else instead. I walk the dogs. I eat. I nap. I throw the ball. I drink tea. I drink wine. I play a game on my phone. I walk the dogs.

I start up my computer, then power it down, terrified. Perhaps my brain is broken. Or what if I’m just lazy and lacking in character?

I lock the dogs in the camper to walk alone. My camp is near a small river, at Rainbow Falls where the opposing riverbanks bend together like the thighs of a modest woman, forcing the water through a turbulent triangle. I walk alone to hear my own feet clop along in rain boots, steps heavy as a cow. I walk alone to quiet any nagging needs, to stand perfectly still and listen for croaking frogs and dropping leaves.

“You’ve completely forgotten how to be alone and unoccupied.” There's no one around. I say the words out loud like a crazy person.

When I return to the camper, I go to sleep, dogs pressed in on either side of me. I don’t work that evening, but I no longer look at my phone, or eat, or pace. Ten hours I sleep.

Come morning, I wake my fine fellows and walk them out on the trail I spotted yesterday evening. Wide and straight, an old railway bed turned public trail, the path fades into infinity before and behind the spot where I catch it at “Dryad’s Rest” crossing.

A different world from the golden autumn I enjoyed last night, silver fog swallows the view. Dewy spider webs drape over branches like Christmas garlands. I clip-clop along behind my dogs, the companion thud of my rain boots against the back of my calves again make me think my steps sound like a giant, lumbering cow.

My 100-pound dog with the useless back legs follows his spritely brother down a ravine. While the younger dog climbs the slippery slope back to the trail with bounding ease, my big, black dog slides on the grass and mud and lands squarely on his rump at the bottom. He whines.

“You went down there. You can get back up.”

I walk away, assuming my fading steps will compel him to rally and figure his way. This doesn’t happen.

He shrieks and whimpers like a toddler, delicate, high-pitched cries I’ve never heard come from his rough throat. I stomp back and peer over the edge His eyes shine at me like yellow diamonds.

“Shit.”

I find my way over the edge and down the slide. It’s the damn marsh grass, wet with dew. The entire side is slicker than buttered plastic.

I say a little thanks for my cumbersome rain boots as I land with a splash at the bottom of the ravine in half a foot of muddy water.

“Come on, Zeus,” I say, wedge my palms under his haunches and heft his weight up and forward.

Once on top of his feet, he makes the climb with minimal shoving and pushing on my part.

At the top, back on the trail while I wipe the muck off my hands onto my jean, I look across to the pasture on the other side. Three rust-colored cows stare at me. They stand so perfectly aligned and spaced that I expect them at any moment to take a slide-step to the left, say ooooo, and start a do-wop routine.

“Hi, cows.”

I fall in behind my dogs and we clip-clop back in the direction of our camper trailer.

Back inside, peeled free from boots and raincoat, I sit at the little table with my coffee and my laptop. I feel better somehow. I open the file, scroll to where I left off, and begin to type.

 

What happens to the experiences we forget? If we forget a day, or place, or a love, is it as though it never happened?

Years ago, I stopped taking photographs. As an avid photographer, one who even built a darkroom in her father’s basement, this change of behavior felt akin to a divorce, or a death. One day I took photos, the next day I didn’t. As sudden as a car crash. The constant pull to frame and record experience and vision in a lasting medium exhausted my soul. Everywhere I looked, I saw edges, thirds and lighting. I could no longer see my surroundings without mentally filtering for shots worth snapping.

I created a beautiful portfolio of images, evidence of a life well-lived, of incredible places, of self-portraits capturing moments that proved I was beautiful and young. I would flip through these images as though examining the life of a stranger. The cumulative impact of the pictures, despite literal renderings of my life, displayed an untruth. I could not remember who I was with that day I captured the shot of the willow in the Japanese garden. I have no idea if that somber mood shown in the shot of me glancing over my shoulder was authentic or posed. A panic built in me, one that hissed that by focusing on capturing my life in images, I was in fact forgetting, even re-writing it.

I stopped taking pictures.

My husband pointed out recently that there are no photographs of him in my office, no pictures of our family or even our dogs. There is only a picture of the dog I had in my childhood, and a few images of myself in various countries, all taken before I hit twenty-five. That’s it.

“You’re so vain!” he said to me.

I hadn’t noticed until that moment that I had surrounded myself with pictures of myself. But I also saw what he couldn’t see. Those aren’t pictures of me, those are memory anchors. Not only do I have photographs, I display objects as well. A postcard from Japan with no writing, no explanation, but that reminds me of a long ago weekend with a lost love. There is a dinosaur toy given to me by an employee when once-upon-a-time I was a corporate fancy pants. There is a badly framed picture of a fish, a rendering of someone else’s art studio, a wooden box in the shape of the moon, a tiny cast-iron typewriter, tickets to a baseball game that occurred a few years back, a print of a poem.

Those pictures I keep aren’t so I can look at myself. That shot of me on my balcony in the French Quarter is meant to remind me that once I lived in a hot state, that I didn’t have children, that there are people who live entire lives dancing about on cobblestone streets, working at bars and writing gothic poetry. The picture of me on the rooftop in Tanzier is to remind me that once I saw a world where women are regulated to spaces set aside and apart from the street level stream of daily life, that once I halted an entire crowd of menacing men by standing my ground and shouting the one word I knew how to clearly pronounce in the their language, shame.

These things remind me that once I carried bibles. Once I slept with gangsters. Once I lived in the woods. Once I was strong. Once I was weak. Once I went up a mountain and the heavens opened and I learned the name of my future daughter. Once I was a drunk. Once I was a leader.

I still worry about it. If I loved you, and it was true, and I forget our time together, does it mean I never really loved you?

If even love can be forgotten, what possible purpose can pull me through my weeks.

I have read and reread the book Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. The concept of the river compels and soothes me. If time is a river, one we are constantly moving down, our position in the stream has no impact on the existence of the flow before or behind me. Because I can’t see it, or touch it, or hear it, does not mean that it is no longer. All things exist at all time. Just because I left you behind in different waters, does not mean you are gone from me forever. We’re still drenched by the same passage of time.

“This is you,” I said to my husband, pointing out the poem tacked to the wall. “This is you,” I said, picking up the baseball tickets, the little typewriter he gave me. “You’re all over my office.”

I stood and wrapped my arms around him, kissed him. “This is you, standing with me right now, just how I prefer to have you.”

 

The struggle is one eternal and relentless, the one of woman and man versus house and finance, versus each other, versus children and laundry and summer vacation, versus unfinished manuscript.

In an attempt to strike a cease-fire, my husband takes me to a blues club. We watch a middle-aged man with bright blonde hair and BBQ joint t-shirt stretched over rounded belly belt out songs from south Florida. I squint, narrow my focus so I can’t see the jeans and fleece on the patrons around me, try to pretend that it’s not a Thursday night in Seattle where suddenly it’s rainy and cool even though we just hit the ides of August.

My husband orders me a bourbon on the rocks, coos platitudes. Lean on me. I’ll be the glue that keeps you together. You can count on me.

“Leaning is the last thing I want to do right now.” I sit with stiff back, stiff shoulders, unmoved by his warm hand on my back. “I just have to get stuff done. I don’t need you to hold me. I need you to stand up.”

A couple at least fifteen years older than us, maybe more, slink and side-step across the dance floor. They press close together, pause on cue, move again, dip, separate, join. Both keep their eyes closed. We’re all watching them. Even the band is watching them. The lead singer gives a signal and the bass kicks in low, thumping, dominant. The couple dip a little lower, no longer separate and join, just join.

I look back at my husband, his face warmed by candlelight. He’s giving me that smoldering look. Damn, I think, and take out my phone to snap a picture.

He can hold a mood even when faced with a lens. I cannot. I become aware of people not in the room. People I can’t talk to, people that will make a judgment on me from a single, immutable frame. Not my husband. His smolder deepens, a tiny smile playing on the edge of his lips.

I snap a few photos and sit against him so he can see me scroll through the results.

“You always take such good pictures of me,” he says.

“Hm,” I say, sigh, and drop my phone back into my bag, turn my attention back to the stage.

The drummer is the only woman on the band. She’s also the only black person. I wonder how in the world she hooked up with this group of aging Parrotheads. Cock-sure, the blonde front man struts the length of the stage, howls, asks the audience to howl with him.

“I’m ready to go, “ I say. “I have a 9am meeting. Sorry.”

“Of course, love. Whatever you need.”

We’re halfway to the door when the drummer starts to sing. The blonde band leader has pocketed his harmonica and brought out a saxophone. Music that pounded, beat on the door, hammered the planks, gives way to melody that slides, that runs fingers across bare necks, that moans. And over it all, the woman sings, these blues will get me through.

Without speaking, we slide into empty seats. The woman’s voice lifts high in twirl, then flattens out wide and deep. Her fists pummel the drums, sticks flying, yet her face remains still and drenched in thoughtful calm. My husband slides his hand over mine, squeezes. I squeeze back, do not release.

No one is watching the dancers. No one is drinking. It’s eternal, this struggle, this one of woman and man versus moment, versus the last the bar of the song, versus the sun that will no doubt rise again.

The crimes of my youth surfaced with the arrival of my old friend in my city. I first met Josh the summer I worked at the Old Faithful resort in Yellowstone Park. I was 19, dauntless, with deer-like legs on which I bounded through my shifts at the restaurant and right out onto the trails when clocked out. Josh was my best friend that summer, my safe friend, the one with whom I could share a back-country tent without a single concern as I considered him as one might a brother.

Josh is a country boy. He’s still lives in the house he grew up in on his parents dairy farm in Wisconsin. He works maintenance at a local hospital on the night shift, then spends his days helping on his parents farm. I don’t think he sleeps. He’s married now, with three kids.

15 years passed without us meeting again, but occasionally I’d get a pack of cheese curds for Christmas, a comment on a Facebook post about my daughter or my recent doings. His trip to my city to visit nearby relatives was only the second time he’d ever been on a plane, and the first time he’d ever been in a “big city”.  Not long ago, I got a message from him out of the blue, could I pick him up at the airport. Could I take him to the Space Needle?

Of course, I replied. I’ll also take you out to dinner and to my house to meet my family.

Every day leading up to the trip he’d send me another message. Did he need to dress up for dinner? Was I taking him to my favorite place? Would my husband come with us? Did I have that same butterfly feeling in my stomach?

Cute, I thought. He’s really excited about this.

He arrived a bundle of nervous energy. Since I told him he didn’t need to dress up, he walked off the plane in shorts, a plaid button-up shirt with the sleeves cut out to make it a tank top, and a huge goofy smile.

“You look exactly the same!” He said. “Except your hair isn’t as messy as it was in Yellowstone.”

I laughed and gave him a great big hug.

He couldn’t possibly remember the places I took him that day. I don’t think he was aware of our surroundings at all. He told me back-to-back stories about that summer long ago and wanted to know all about my life since then. In the midst of all this, I took him to the waterfront to eat local clam chowder. I showed him the Space Needle. I took him to meet my kids and my husband.

Late in the evening, we started the long drive north to where I would deposit him at his aunt’s. The stories he recounted in the car filled me with joyful remembrances. I could actually feel again what it was like to be 19 and out in the world for the first time. I sat straighter in my seat, excitement building as he helped me remember adventures I hadn’t thought of in over a decade.

He asked me question after question. Did I remember swimming in the Yellowstone river, did I remember the time we hiked three days to summit a mountain, did I remember the steakhouse and the name of the ice cream shop on the West entrance to the park?

Yes, yes! Now I remember!

He asked me what the happiest time of my life has been since then. I told him three short stories about different moments in my life. He became quiet. I must have driven a few miles before breaking the silence.

“And you? What was your happiest time?”

“For me it was that summer,” he said. “It was always that summer.”

“Yes.” I sighed. “It was rather perfect.”

“Do you remember the time I jumped in front of the buffalo and saved your life,” he said.

“No.” I laughed, smacking his arm. “That didn’t happen! Now you’re making stories up.”

“Yes it did,” he said. “Do you remember when you moved to Japan and I kept trying to call you, but couldn’t ever get the call through? Jeepers. I spend a hundred dollars on calling cards, but never got through.”

I stopped laughing, concentrated on the road ahead.

“No.”

“You were the only friend from that summer that ever kept in touch with me,” he said. “Do you remember a couple years later when you had broken up with your boyfriend, we were on the phone and you said I should move out to the west coast?”

I looked at him. “I did?”

“Yes, but I had never moved anywhere. I was scared. My whole life was on the farm. I needed more to move. I didn’t know if you were asking me as a friend.” He looked out the window. “Or something else.”

“Oh."

Suddenly I remembered so much more about that summer, about myself at that time. Straight as an arrow, I didn’t drink, I didn’t mess around. In the park, I attended every Christian bonfire to sing the songs and say the prayers. Also, the product of not one but four parental divorces, I hungered for attention. I wore tiny shorts, bared skin and laughed with abandon. I wouldn’t go out with any boy working there, but made sure they saw me around enough to want me. Josh was by my side that entire summer and absorbed the full force of my desperate need for love.

Josh said, “You were always moving around then. I thought I’d move out west for you and poof, you’d just disappear. I never knew how you were asking me.”

I took a deep breath. I couldn’t let a single minute pass by with him still holding that thought. “I think I was careless with my words then.” I glanced over to see if he understood, but he wasn’t looking my way. “Moving was a hobby for me, I didn’t realize what a big deal it was for you. If I asked, it was definitively as a friend.”

“That’s what I thought all this time.” Josh said the words so quickly after mine it was like I hadn’t spoken at all.

I looked at him, tried to catch his eyes before I needed to look ahead at the traffic again, but he never turned to look at me.

After I dropped him off with awkward hug and a promise to not go another 15 years without seeing him, my mind churned the entire the long ride home. My stomach turned. I felt the years close around me and drove fast, anxious to put miles between me and the girl I used to be.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Hindsight is 20/20.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

How many times have you heard these sentiments, telling you that what you think you want may not bring the happiness you imagine?

I have wanted a great many things.

I wanted a great big, joyful family. Once married into one, I learned about great big, hurtful family politics and the impossibility of pleasing everybody all the time.

I wanted all of our kids at our house full-time for the summer, only later realizing my quiet days working at home are key for maintaining my focus (sanity).

Once I wanted to leave all corporate jobs behind and only work for myself. That was before learning how having clients can be like having a herd of bosses, all with different quirks, styles and reliability in payment.

Then there is the case of the rising rent.

Our landlords decided to raise our rent by $100 a month. This may not sound like a much, but the rent already knocked soundly against roof of our budget. My husband and I decided to see this an opportunity to finally make a move into a home that would allow me to lessen my client load and spend more time writing. Perhaps we could even find a bigger yard, or a shorter commute for him. This could be great!

We spent an exhausting week deciphering the secret code that property managers use to favorably describe the remarkably flawed properties they are trying to pass off as desirable. We sacrificed an entire Saturday to visiting homes deemed unsuitable by me or my husband.

We learned that if the ad describes a large yard, natural setting and classic stylings, we'd encounter house marooned in a sea of unkept wilds, with popcorn ceilings and brown shag carpet.

We learned that if the ad talks up granite counters, fancy appliances and walk-in closets, that this likely means that the house is a brand new townhome construction, smashed awkwardly against no less than eight or so other townhomes with slightly different paint schemes, a shared driveway, no yard at all and window that look directly into your neighbors rooms. If I pressed my nose to the glass at the same time as the neighbor, we'd be just six inches from kissing, glass not withstanding.

After ten houses, two-drive through meals and an almost complete collapse of marital harmony, we decided to call it quits and head home.

Home.

Oh, our yard is small, but look how cute and easy to care for. Look at our lovely living room with the furniture we just bought with our wedding gifts. See how welcoming my office looks now that I've finally gotten around to hanging the pictures. Oh, and look at how much crap we have every where that I certainly don't want to put into boxes.

Collapsed on the couch, clinging to each other, tired of bitter compromises and disagreements carefully disguised as rationales, I said to my love, "$100 really isn't that much. Once new project a month would more than cover it."

I looked up at my husband, watched his left eyebrow arch as he regarded me.

"Now," I said. "I like how things are right now."

He squeezed me and kissed my forehead. "And aren't we lucky to know it?"