CONTRASTS NORTH AND SOUTH

Ah…my nursing class is over and I’m finding myself with some wonderful evenings of free time.  It’s taken several days to unwind and to begin to enjoy what feels like a normal several hours after work before succumbing to a deep winter's sleep in this dark and interesting place.  I could get very used to these sorts of evenings and to waking up without a nursing assignment on my mind, at least until they begin again on January 12.  That should be plenty of time to feel rested and reinspired. 

The wind chill has caused temperatures lately to be between minus 20 and minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit.  It will drop as winter goes on to 50 to 60 or possibly more degrees below zero necessitating, even now, warm clothes and for me, interventions like hot tea after trekking for any distance.  Kind people stop often on the roads before and after the lagoon and offer rides on cold and windy days.  I seem to need a great deal of exercise and enjoy it as well, so usually find myself smiling and shouting into the wind in their direction, “Thank you! I’m good!” and hope if conditions are severe enough that they might ask again.

The week before last on a day when it was minus 29, I was wearing my customary leggings, REI outer pants, a wool coat under my Arctic jacket, a wool hat under a fur hat and a scarf completing the cocoon or perhaps mummy-like encasing that makes my walks to work and back relatively comfortable ones, if I don’t stand in place at any point.  The winds can be strong and make ones face hurt, at least mine.  I’ve had areas of frost bite on my cheeks that took quite a while to heal.  I stopped to mail a card at the post office and ran into Dave.  He walks the same route I do, but usually leaves either earlier or later.  It’s always nice running into him and we decided to walk together.  He looked down at his jeans and tennis shoes and commented that he thought he might start wearing long johns and boots soon.  I had to laugh comparing our outfits.  He chatted away on our walk across the lagoon while I muffled responses from behind my scarf. 

My friend Mari and I walk home together sometimes.  She has a habit of working late and often needs to be rescued from even longer hours (I wonder if she might post a comment regarding this?) Her office is on my way to the lagoon so stopping by for her nets a warm visit while she wraps things up and an enjoyable trek home together.  Mari seems to be made out of the same sort of stuff that Dave is.  She usually wears a headband and no scarf on our walks that sometimes become weavings back and forth as we are buffeted around by the strong wind.  She forges ahead while I often turn around and walk backwards in order to catch my breath.  I ask from beneath my layers, “aren’t you freezing?” “Naw,” she replies. 

Mari is the sort of friend that makes you feel very cared for.  I live alone so when conditions warrant worry about survival, she reminds me that if anything were to happen on a walk by myself, that no one would know, possibly until stumbling across me in the morning.  She doesn’t add this last part.  If I work late and she is already home, she insists that I text her when I leave work and then again when I get to my apartment. What a great friend. 

I hope she doesn’t mind my sharing another example of her generosity.  She keeps my mail box from overflowing when I’m gone for several weeks if she’s in Barrow.  I give her my keys and say “Mari, I’ve ordered several things and think they might arrive when I’m gone, but please just leave any packages there for me and I’ll get them when I get home.” or some variation of this. Without exception I come home to find my packages, sometimes multiple ones, stacked neatly in my apartment. The last time, she used her small hand truck to haul a box of 40 pounds of dirt for my new grow box as well as several other good-sized packages over icy, snow-blown streets and up to my apartment.  I think kindness comes naturally to Mari and that she might extend the same sort of friendship wherever she lives and to all of her friends, but I think the climate as well as the somewhat isolated existence in Barrow does bring out wonderful qualities in people.  I look for and embrace opportunities to help people, but Mari naturally breathes in and just creates them.  What a great friend to have, here or anywhere. 

I’m revisiting a BBC video from the library here called “Frozen Plant”.  It’s about life in the Arctic and in Antarctica.  It’s been fascinating being reminded of the similarities and differences.  It’s winter here now although just the beginning and except for several hours of twilight and also moonlight, dark.  If skies are clear, we’ll see the sun slip above the horizon again at 1:01 pm on the 23^rd of January.  Alternately, summer has begun on the southern pole.