In which glacial is the new epic {Just Write}

Environmental whiplash. No seriously, it's a thing. I had a severe case of it this weekend when I launched straight from a bouncy house birthday party to a glacier hike. One minute I'm surrounded by screaming banshees and smelly socks and headache-inducing inflatables. An hour later, I'm hiking a frozen lake en route to a glacier. Which, come to think of it, is the cure for just about everything, including environmental whiplash.

::

At first, she envied the toddler in the sled with the skate skiing dad. Then, the musher and his huskies. For the whole of two miles, she trudged, springless steps toward this wonder I'd promised at the halfway point. I was talking about the glacier, but she was thinking about the candy. And really, who cares what the carrot looks like as long as she kept walking?

The boys pressed forward faster, leaving us to linger in the long mountain shadow. I listened to her whine of a cold face and a bruised knee, neither of which are remote factors when she wants to ski just one more run. Hiking is all plod and no whoosh, or so she thinks.

I asked her to sing to pass the time, to leave less air space for the complain-plane. She sang her Alaska songs (Fur Rondezvous and Huskies), and corrected me after I messed up the refrain (you say mush TWO times, not THREE, silly mama). The sun found us again, and together we turned a corner in every sense.

There it was. We walked right up to the glacier and said hello. We pulled out the snacks and the camera and our sense of wonder. Perhaps they were tired of my remarks about how incredibly amazing it was to travel this hour in this place, but they didn't disagree. The girl perked up, in fact, started dancing on the ice, pointing out heart shapes, embracing the label I tried giving her earlier when pleading for a faster gait--my "tough Alaskan girl".

::

I could maybe name a few moments in the whole of two hours where there wasn't at least a hint of discomfort. Fingers too cold, bladders too full, stomachs too empty, legs too tired.

But the discomfort is never what we remember. We latch on instead to the handful of minutes when the sun highlighted our hair and the glacier towered above and the icebergs became seats and the four of us were together in this surreal, desolate, wild corner of the world. 

 

I am a day early in this "just write" deal, or six days late is probably more like it. But I think Heather will forgive me just this once.

Mahalo, etc.

I never know where to start, usually because I should've started years ago. Do you pretend the years never were and start fresh? Do you go back and wax chronological?

The kids are weaponizing their stuffed animals. There's an invention room and a testing room. They skip room to room. An F-18 bomber has been fashioned from a soccer pillow. It's raining in Hawaii, and we don't care. (Jimmy cracked corn as well. Still don't care.) They say mahalo for the best. vacation. ever. I say mahalo for having eyes that sparkle like everything is wild and new. Their pupils widen, pulses quicken like it's the easiest, most natural way to live. This is the glory of youth.

I live vicariously. I didn't know it wouldn't last forever. I should've, I mean, is anything more obvious? But I didn't. I was in such a hurry to be a responsible adult. Too bad. I would've liked to stay wide-eyed and wild beyond the age of 13. But, I'm still obsessed with whether there will be dessert, so, at least I have that in common with the children.

::

C brought home a school packet yesterday. He'd written, "An example of someone who shows the habit of amazement and wonder is my mom, because she loves nature and when we came to Alaska, she was amazed." He drew a picture of me with bulbous eyes and weird hair. It's not terribly flattering. But I'm not sure I can think of a compliment that would have made me happier. There was another worksheet about persistence. I was the example in that one too. He said it was because I run marathons. I'm glad there weren't any worksheets asking for examples of people who are impatient or yellers. I'm glad it was just about wonder and persistence.

::

We came home to sunshine. This is breakup season in Alaska. The ice begins to break, to melt, to disappear. The sun stays up later and later, until it is higher in the sky at 6 pm than it ever was for the whole of January. It's easier to be happy on the days when the sun lingers above the mountains until after dinner. It's easier to love where I live when we can go night skiing in the sunshine.

::

I never know where to start, but I can usually figure out an ending. Usually. Not today. Today, I'm content just to ramble and to elude to a vacation during which I was so sick I couldn't go 30 seconds without a tissue, a vacation in which rain didn't daunt us even in the slightest, mostly because it wasn't the freezing sort. The truth is today I don't care in the least bit about an ending. I'm happy to have finally just begun.

The Closest I Get To Miracles

I want to believe I can walk on water, but skating on thin ice (without falling in) is typically the closest I get to miracles.

It's been two weeks since my husband drove me to the airport in freezing rain and on ice rink roads. I breathed deep breaths and gulped down water and talked very good sense to myself, but my pounding pulse could not be tricked into slowing down.

There was something wildly unsettling about leaving my most precious people to fend for themselves in icy weather, to miss seeing their first ski meet, to risk that a long weekend with "just Dad" could turn into an entire childhood of the same.

I know that sounds melodramatic (and it totally is), but I'm not so naive as to think life carries always and perfectly on. And I was about to spend a good deal of time on the LA freeways, so the worrying was at least partially warranted.

But there was something triumphant about leaning into the anxiety, looking fear in the face, going out of my way to meet risk and discomfort  

I know. I must be a real piece of work to call myself courageous for leaving my family in Alaska to enjoy a girls weekend and run a marathon in California. I fly on a plane to flip-flop weather, and somehow this translates to me being brave?

But it does. In my pitiful, privileged way, it does. This is my vulnerability--that I love three people to the depths, the source of my wildest joy and most wrenching fear.

Tonight we scarfed pizza and devoured books. They're still reading as I type. The sun dipped behind the mountain, and we sat underneath the same roof while the moon rose. This is lovely and safe and comfortable and I could go on like this forever.

Except I couldn't. And neither could they. At least not without a heavy dose of antidepressants. That's why I left them for a weekend. That's why I set a goal I wasn't sure I could reach. That's why I took a risk.

Because this is what you do when you want a story to tell. You get off the couch and you go somewhere besides the carpool line or the cubicle. You stop picking stupid fights about where to store winter gear and start asking the hard questions, listening to the uncomfortable answers. You invest without guaranteed return. You give your whole heart to beat loudly into the day; and you don't damper-pedal dreams, yours or theirs.

I want to believe I can walk on water. Don't we all? And of course, we can't.

But you know what we can do? We can take a risk.

Sure, we could slip or sink, get soaked, start shivering. But we also might swim it, surf it, skate it, scale it. Water walking doesn't have a monopoly on the miracle market. It's not the only way to cross.

Most of the time, I think, the miracle just slips quietly into the back row while we're telling our stories--the stories of how we came up with the courage to cross, how we made it to the other side.

In the plod after plod {Just Write}

Sometimes the hours are rote, a plod after plod through daily dirt. Sometimes the miles are long, like manning the doily booth at the flea market. No one stops to examine the lace or ask for a price. And it's one thing when life is lonely, but when it's both tedious and lonely, all you can think is maybe you should give up on selling doilies. Or running 20 miles on the treadmill.

But even the rote hours deliver the surging moments. Ideas surface, endorphins rise, strides lengthen. (And doilies sell. Just maybe?) Somewhere in the plod after plod, you begin to feel strong where you once felt lame. Somewhere in these everyday hours, the dull staleness morphs into a brilliant stillness. And you cling to it like desert icicles. Who cares that it always melts away? It's magic while it lasts.

Every now and then in the plod after plod, the legs stop feeling like bricks. You look down to see a rushing ground. You sprint. You smile. You wonder--is this how it feels to float? The drudgery may be back tomorrow or maybe by mile seven, but for now, you are no longer lonely. You are no longer bored. You are as alive in your own life as a person gets to be. 

 

And this. This is why you keep running. Or selling doilies. Or mothering. Or doing whatever it is in life that you do. 

 

Because in every faceless desolate 

step-after-step minute, 

there is a chance to find a desert icicle, 

to be surprised by speed or 

astonished by stillness, 

and to feel 

so very much alive.

::

I have no idea where the doilies reference came from. The running, yes, because it's the only darn thing I seem to do these days. But doilies. Really? I have to blame the doilies on Heather, since she's the one who started this whole Just Write nonsense. (And I love her for it.)

Just Wait Until Winter

What winter looks like along the Turnagain Arm. Gorgeous, yes?

The rumors are true. I've been neglecting my family to spend a scandalous amount of time with Newman.

Calm down. Newman is just a treadmill. And it isn't really neglect if you feed the kids eventually, right? A few mornings ago, I stumbled my way into running shorts at 6:00 to run 20 miles with Newman. The night before I gave the kids strict instructions: 1) sleep in like you've never slept in before, and 2) get your own breakfast. 

And you know what? It worked. When I came upstairs a bit before 9:00, two puffy-eyed bed-headed children looked up from their cereal bowls and cartoons to say good morning. Well, it wasn't so much good morning as it was, can we watch another show before you make us do responsibilities. Translated: We wish you'd run a bit longer, Mom. 

So anyway, we are all surviving my winter marathon training. The timing isn't my favorite--with mileage peaking at the most wonderful (coldest, busiest) time of the year, while the kids are on break from school and my time to run is limited by our need to sled, ski, skate and have All The Fun. But all this winter training will be worth it, if not merely for the accomplishment of 26.2, then for the fact that I get to attempt a BQ wearing shorts.

::

I've been doing all my best writing with Newman too. Which is unfortunate, since neither of us can take notes, and my memory is only slightly more advanced than his. (He can calculate pace and calories like a math whiz, but his creative writing skills need some work.) You'd be amazed at the deep thoughts that are dredged up during 160 minutes of running, once I get beyond the usual cursing and self-loathing.

::

When we first moved to Alaska, many people warned me to "just wait until winter!" in response to my gushing about how much we loved it here.

Well, I waited.

And I still love it.

Where else can you go snow tubing at the break of dawn? Where else can you watch a bowl game before the sun comes up? (I know, I know, the break of dawn isn't until 10 o'clock, but still....).

We celebrated winter solstice by spending every second of daylight outside skiing. You can fill up on just five hours of daylight. You really can.

Last week, I referred to 20 degree temps as "warming up" and took the kids to a sledding hill with more vertical drop than our old Ohio ski slope.

Our sledding "hill"

This week, I glimpsed Denali on the way to the library. 

Last night I cooked the salmon our neighbors gave us for Christmas (the fish they pulled straight from a net in the Kenai).

This morning I laced up my spiked trainers and ran 16 miles on a trail of packed snow.

And this afternoon was spent skating and playing pick-up hockey with friends on an outdoor ice rink at a neighborhood school.

 

So yes, just wait until winter. Because after just one gorgeous and snowy and cold Alaskan winter, you might never want to leave.

On the swell and the crash {Just Write}

There's grass weaving a pattern through the pavement. And there's wind carrying a scented cocktail of sea and blossoms. And there's me, running with mountains to my left, waves to my right, looking but not seeing. I left sub zero temps to escape to this paradise with my husband, and I have no business being anything less than euphoric as I run without hat and gloves for the first time in months.

But I'm not anything close to euphoric. At best, I'm content. At worst, I'm disappointed. And somewhere in the middle, I'm trying to talk myself into gratitude, willing myself to stay in the moment, loathing the way I can't seem to outrun the anxiety.

I want to believe that I'm easily pleased, that I'm mostly a happy person. But there are moments adding up to hours and days and even weeks when I'm close enough to the edge to lose my footing, when the sturdy trail narrows into inches, when I'm one footfall away from a faceplant.

I don't want you to see the ugliness. I don't want you to know how irritated I was with the rooster that kept waking me up at 3 am, or with the coffee maker that didn't have any filters, or with myself for leaving the camera charging cord at home, or with the way our plans were foiled by a road closure. Because for real. I'm in freaking Hawaii celebrating my wedding anniversary with my awesome husband. It's negative eleven degrees at home where my awesome children are being wonderfully cared for by my awesome parents. How the hell can I feel so crabby and disappointed with all that awesome floating around? What is WRONG with me?

Don't answer that.

Here's the thing. I know what's wrong. Imagine the ocean, the swell of the waves, the way they rise and fall. Imagine a mountain, the highest peak, the way it juts like the tip of a triangle into the horizon. I want to perch on that tip, that narrow, steep, impossible top. I want to float on that swell, that fleeting, porous, impossible top. But that's not how it works. How it works is that you crash into the sand. How it works is that you tumble down the mountain. (Jack and Jill will vouch for me on this). How it works is that the highs are never quite as high as we hope they'll be. And the lows are far too frequent.

I don't know what the answer is. Gratitude is a big part of it, I'm sure of that. Meditation and prayer. Hugging the awesome people in your life. Smiling more. Visualizing anxiety in the form of a person and then punching it in the face. These are all good ideas, but really, what do I know? I'm not the answer lady, not on this one.

But here's what I do know. It helps to know that we aren't alone. It helps to know that even people with picture perfect lives (guilty!) feel totally effed up at times. It helps to know that these valleys, these crashes, these crumbly-earthed trails, these are the rule, not the exception. No one gets to linger on that impossible top of the mountain. No one gets to float endlessly on the swells. I'm telling you this because I don't want to feel like something's wrong with me, and I don't want you to feel like something's wrong with you. If we must live mostly in the valley or in the climb or in the fall, let's at least give each other good, honest company along the way. Yes?


And speaking of good company, I'm just writing today, with Heather.