BREAKUP IN BARROW, SPRING 2014

I’ve loved this past winter, my second one.  It feels as though it just began and not possible that a second spring is here.  I remember last year that I wasn’t anxious for it to come and was dismayed when the snow and ice melted revealing a vastly different terrain of endless potholes filled with muddy water, soggy tundra, a fluid instead of a frozen and navigable on foot or bicycle lagoon and corners of just about every street flooded with large pools of water. 

Barrow is absolutely beautiful when covered with snow.  It’s difficult to describe, but for me, there really is nowhere on earth as beautiful as a treeless, mountainless, snow-covered terrain.  The ground meets the sky in every direction and one can see clearly almost forever.  I love the cold.  It’s invigorating, stirring one’s body and emotions, or mine anyway, to what feels some days, like peak performance.  Along with the wind it creates an environment where a sense of accomplishment is always present. Just walking or bike riding to work some days is a test of strength and attitude.  This stunning, soul-filling, inspiring beauty is transformed into another kind of beauty that I’m learning to appreciate now. 

Not much over a week ago temperatures were hovering around 5 below and winds out of the east were dropping them to an average of minus 24.  On Tuesday afternoon of this week, the North Slope Borough Mayor declared a snow day.  Winds gusting to 42 miles an hour whipped fresh snow high into the air and alternately ushered lacy, swirling blankets of it quickly down ice covered streets.  It was safer to be at home and off the roads if one could make their way there.  I was scheduled to participate in a teleconference about some new tools for assessing children for autism that afternoon so wished my co-workers safe journeys, made a fresh pot of tea and caught up on some charting, waiting for the teleconference to begin.  I loved the sound of the wind outside the clinic windows and walls, howling, softening, picking up speed, comforting to me in its power.  A weather advisory received earlier in the day predicted that the blizzard would calm sometime in the afternoon.  It had diminished to soft breezes by 4 pm.  My walk along the beach to the post office and then home was a safe and pleasant one.

It’s Friday today and hard in some ways remembering that it was winter on Tuesday.  The change has been so rapid. The potholes seem even more numerous than last year, the puddles at street corners, larger, if possible, the water-covered lagoon isn’t safe to traverse by foot, bike or vehicle and there is a profuse amount of mud on most roads, in yards and in between the many wooden houses. 

Last night and this morning, my walk to work and back were very unusual.  It wasn’t a walk really, but an exercise in balance while moving steadily forward, requiring much more time than normal.  All ground surfaces seemed to be covered with ice and then a thin layer of water.  I slipped and fell into a puddle of muddy water on my walk home, but surprisingly only once.  It really was tricky staying upright.  By tonight the temperatures had consistently been above 32 so much of the underlying ice had melted making for very safe treks through very rich looking mud.

I’ve parked my bike for now.  I’m remembering how the mud and grit last year ruined the bearings in my crank case on the one I purchased last spring.  By fall time I wasn’t able to ride it.  It was beyond repair, or my level or repair at least.  There didn’t seem to be any other option than to ceremoniously add it to a heap of other people’s refuse in the large dumpster outside my apartment building after all usable parts, including the snow tires, were salvaged.   This bike will last another and even more winters if I can restrain myself from taking it for rides in the muddy spring, summer and into the fall.  Oh, I’m missing it already and will undoubtedly go through withdrawals but on the other hand, it’s relaxing to meander down streets, between houses, across the path separating the lagoons leading to the old hospital building, past a white church, the courthouse, the bank, along the ocean and to the clinic and home again, maybe on a different route.  

I’ve had a change of heart in several respects and it feels so much better than spending mental energy on resisting what’s uncomfortable or longing for something that’s changing and passing.   I’ve decided to embrace each moment and mile, regardless of the appearance of things.  I’m welcoming spring this year and am not having trouble seeing the gorgeous expanses of white slip away.  I have no doubt that they’ll be back next year but for now I’m going to focus on loving every minute of this season, however different.  There are more people outside – children playing, people walking, four wheelers bouncing by, and whalers preparing for the spring hunt.  Birds, long playful ribbons of them, are back, flying high over the ocean on their way east and the ones that stay near sing their happy songs day and night.  It’s all pretty wonderful…just a matter of perspective, I guess.

Greetings to endless sun, just prior to a farewell to endless snow...

I’ve turned a corner in regards to the midnight sun as well.  On a recent post, I wrote about how I longed for darkness during the nights last summer and was converting my small hallway library into a sleeping room this year.   I found it difficult to wind down and get rest.  Without a clock, one might always think it’s the middle of the day, prompting an unwanted expenditure of physical and mental energy late into the night and in to the early hours.  What?  It can’t be 3 am!  It looks like noon!  The sun is shining in all its glory outside my window now at 10 pm with plenty of time left before it sets and it will be up well before I am.  Nonresistance is my new mindset and it’s working quite well so far.  No more interventions to create darkness and induce sleep.  By gosh, in the spirit of being a tough-minded Alaskan, I’m just going to fall asleep when it’s time.  I’ve been leaving the curtain open at night, really testing my new way of relating to the big, bright orb outside my window and it’s working much better than I had expected.  Ah, nice to be learning to make molehills out of a mountains!

Amen, right?! = )

"Thank you!" in Inupiaq