I didn't dream about Alaska as a child. I favored the warm sunny beaches of California when I imagined myself leaving Connecticut for someplace exotic and new.
Even as a young adult, I would have spit out my drink if someone from the future met me at a party and said, "You will someday settle on the side of a mountain in Seward Alaska, thousands of miles from your friends and family."
With close ties across New England, at that point in my life I considered Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont my wilderness to explore, a short car ride from my parents on the Cape and my friends in Boston and NYC.
And yet as the year 2000 loomed over 1999, I found myself drawn away from the crowded East to the lure of Alaska, with its wide open spaces and endless possibilities.
Much to my parents' surprise, I ditched my half-finished graduate school application to Harvard and applied to Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage.
A few months later, along with my dear friend Kim, I drove from Maine to Alaska, via Texas, as free as I will ever be again.
When we rode past the Matanuska Glacier, nestled amongst the August wildflowers, the pink Fireweed and purple Lupine, the king and queen of the vibrant meadows, after saying out loud--oh my god, oh my god-- in response to the beauty of it all, I thought to myself: "Why would I move back to Maine when I could live here?"
A few days later, I met Nick, and his warm blue eyes and kind smile made me ditch my resolve to spend the next two years of graduate school as a single woman. By the end of our month long expedition course that involved fifteen days in the Alaska wilderness, I knew I wanted to marry Nicholas Jordan.
And well, here we are, almost twenty-one years later, carving out a life together amongst the salmon, Spruce, and ever-changing views of Resurrection Bay.
We add new garden beds to our land every year, creating more work but more beauty. Digging dirt, moving stones, planting seeds. The native plants, the Elderberry, Devil's Club, Goat's Beard, Salmonberry, to name a few, encroach upon our more cultivated centers, but we create a tentative truce between the chosen and the untamed.
We embrace the hybrid chaos between wild and settled.
Somewhere deep in all of us, regardless of what space we call home, a city skyline or mountainscape, a tropical island or farmland, this confrontation exists between the civilized and the wilderness.
May it be more of a dance than a battle--A tango that changes with the seasons, never static, always moving to the music of the moment.
Last weekend we camped on the Kenai for our annual dipnetting trip, a subsistence fishing tradition every July. Olive off playing with her cousins and new beach friends, Elias standing with us in the water or waiting on the shoreline, fish bonker in hand, under sunny skies.
One afternoon I found myself standing chest-high in the saltwater next to an older man with an Australian accent who was part of a whole crew of fisher folks from multiple generations. He smiled at Elias and me as we worked the net together to catch a big ole red salmon. When Elias opted to stay on the shore, the gentleman told me he used to work with children with disabilities and ended up fostering a teenager with cerebral palsy for years. He spoke about the challenges and rewards, and about the hole left when the young man moved to a group home, despite the transition being right for all involved.
I looked back at Elias on the shore, with feelings of both loss and relief braided together with the unknown, thinking our intricately intertwined years may be limited.
More work, more beauty.
During our weekend at the mouth of the Kenai, I often wouldn't see Olive for hours, she would check in with us when in need but otherwise navigated her time and space with ease. At age eleven, Olive currently balances on that fine line between childhood and adolescence-- and as much as I want to lasso her innocence, I know her unfurling wings will carry her beyond my reach.
Back home, I walk the gardens, making plans in my head to transplant the Columbine, Sorrel, Chives, Iris, from my more established overcrowded gardens to the wide open spaces of the newer ones.
Endless possibilities lay ahead.
A peony on the verge of blooming catches my eye, plush with promise.
An eagle calls, maybe for its mate, or for its fledgling, or perhaps for the sheer joy of singing on the side of the mountain over Resurrection Bay.
Love this. And love the tango metaphor for you, my dancing friend! Thanks for sharing your beautiful musings and pictures. So glad you made the leap to the Great Land.
Ginna
Posted by: Ginna Purrington | 07/24/2021 at 10:33 AM
As always, your writing is beautiful and your emotions real.
Posted by: Susan | 08/06/2021 at 01:33 PM
Ginna and Susan, thank your for your support and comments!
Ginna, I miss dancing with you:)
Posted by: Christy | 09/23/2021 at 07:25 PM