Walking home from the Ink and Wood pop-up at The Roaming Root Cellar, in Fairbanks, Alaska.
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I moved from Nome to Fairbanks, Alaska in June of 2022. My move put me for the first time while teaching in Alaska on the road system. I can now drive to the lower 48 via Canada. Too, I can drive to Anchorage, Denali National Forest, Homer and all other Alaska cities and villages also on the road system.
In remote villages you can only fly or ferry out, if they have a landing strip or a dock. Bush planes can be delayed for days and they weigh you before you climb aboard so as not to exceed the maximum weight limit. They often bring in anticipated mail, much needed food and medical supplies, as well as long awaited Amazon orders.
These two photos above are of the bush plane that finally arrived in the village of Wainwright after two cancelled and one was delayed indefinitely. This was the flight teachers from my school booked together so we could visit family in the lower forty-eight for our Christmas break.
I was so happy to get a seat on this plane. Only half of us could fit. When it landed in Utqiagvik, it quickly turned around and picked up the others. We all made our connecting flights. The photo of me is blurry because cellphones don’t like the bitter cold. It turned off right after I snapped this selfie.
Each plane holds four to eight people, depending on the weight. When I first flew in one of these small planes from Metlaktla to Ketchikan, Alaska, the pilot told us to buckle our seat belts and then to keep one hand at all times during the flight on top of the buckle in case we crashed and went under water. We would need to unbuckle ourselves quickly and swim to safety. I pretty much still do this whenever I am on a plane, small or large
Many of my Alaska work / residence goals were fulfilled when I moved to Fairbanks: on the road system, major airport, large and more than one grocery store, near a University and an active art community. The University of Alaska Fairbanks is about a mile from my place.
A few of the things I love about where I live now include working at my art table and hearing the Alaska Railroad trains whistling by as they head for the nearby depot. Too, watching moose inhale leaves off the slender trunk and branches of a willow tree while out biking the well maintained trails that criss cross the stunning landscape. Plus, blueberry harvesting on nearby Murphy’s Mound with new friends. All of it is bliss.
I knew summer was short and the winter was long here. In late August, I started to prepare for the soon arriving snow. It started falling the last week of September and it continues today. The dark days of winter are just now giving way for sunlight to return as we celebrated Winter Solstice a few weeks ago.
The cold burns your fingertips if you are gloveless for just a moment. I had leather and beaver fur mittens with silver fox fur trim made for me in Nome. They are also beaver fur lined. I walk the mile and a half to school every weekday morning and back. These mittens give me both warmth and protection from severe frost bite that could permanently scare my hands. My students have shared stories of relatives that have lost two or three fingers to the subarctic cold.
My face is completely covered and googles, that I have had for years, protect my eyes. When I took a cab home from Freddie’s (Fred Meyer’s grocery store chain) the other day and noted the temperature as -17, the cabbie said, “This is nothing like years ago. It’s gotten much warmer. I think the lowest we got in December was -21. It used to be -40 or even -60. Things have really warmed up here.” I rubbed my mittens together and said under my breath, “Thank God.” Fairbanks, Alaska is the coldest city in the United States.
Having lived in the Arctic and subarctic for several years, I have great gear that honestly keeps me warm and safe in sub-zero temperatures. My rented condo is well kept and affordable. My third grade students are dedicated learners and so inspiring. Yet, I have felt (and continue to) deep down inside of myself that something very important to my life is missing, besides family and far away friends.
I told myself many times over the years that I would always live near the ocean. As I wrote in an earlier post, I was born with a sea captain’s story etched into my palm. Beach walking and scavenger hunting are family traditions. They draw from me, like the tide pulling sand back into the water, stories and ideas for artwork. The waves coming in and going out echo the rhythm of my breath.
Decades ago, I was visiting an Upstate, New York friend who had moved to San Diego, California. One evening, after an hour of reading at a local coffee shop, I waited with a small group of others for the bus. I was then in my twenties. I noticed a grey haired woman with a cane standing near me.
We started chatting. When the bus arrived minutes later, I asked her where she was going. She turned to me with bright eyes and said, “I am going to the ocean to sit and watch the tide go out. I do this every night.” She had this calm, self-knowing presence. I see her now. She is turning towards me. A guide that still speaks to me today.
What is missing from my life is the ocean and my walks along its curtain of sea foam, beach glass, stone and sticks. My pockets and shoes need sand in them and gathered found beach trinkets to empty when I return home.
Just before the holiday in early December, I put on much of my outdoor, winter gear and headed to The Roaming Root Cellar for their First Friday Arts Event, a pop-up with Linda Wies. She is a printmaker whose studio is called, Ink and Wood.
While she rolled ink across the carved wood that I chose for her to print on my brought clothing, we talked. She spoke of how she transitioned years ago from Los Angeles to Fairbanks. When I told her I missed the ocean, she turned to me and said, “The sky is my ocean.”
Her words would become the title of the poem I wrote when I returned home. It spilled out of me. It resonates with much about my experience speaking with the woman at the bus stop in San Diego years ago. She knew and Linda knows what anchors and comforts them.
For the final draft, only two words needed altering, per a good editor’s insight. I finished writing it December 14th, submitted it for publication on the 15th and it was accepted on the 18th. That is the shortest timeline in my history of writing from completing a work to having it accepted. There is so much in this poem that speaks of who I am and where I, myself, find comfort. The poem is below.
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The Sky Is My Ocean
-for Linda Wies
The artist of
Ink and Wood,
who’s pop-up at
The Roaming Root Cellar
I hurriedly walked to
this cold, full moon,
last Saturday of
November,
talked as she
leaned and pressed
the black inked,
woodblock
carved-by-her
against the white cotton
of my brought gown.
I had said
being walking distance
to the ocean
was the one
must-have not gotten
when I signed to
work in the interior.
She sighed that
she understood
adding that she
grew up in LA
and spent her days
in the curl of the wave
or under the canopy
of an umbrella
on a California beach.
After decades of life
in Fairbanks, where
rivers rickrack the
landscape but
sand and salt
have no home,
she learned to
lean her head back
and swim the vast
blue bowl above
while standing below.
“The sky,” she says,
“is my ocean.”
Walking home
with a brown bag
of bought things,
I looked to the
late evening sky
asking if this is now
my ocean, too?
A halo encircled
the bright moon.
Snow fell as I walked
the plowed path before me.
I listened for the wave;
heard cars and
snow machines.
I sniffed the night air
for salt and gull;
caught the scent of
lodgepole pine
instead.
I seek the
smooth seaglass
that fills my
empty jam jars.
The seal teeth and
hag stones
I often found at
Nome Beach, and more.
Too, the sand that seeps
into any shoes I wear
needing them to be
emptied at night
before entering the tub.
If not the Atlantic
or Pacific,
may I find myself at
the Baltic or
Bearing Sea,
each so familiar to me.
The sky is not my ocean.
What a gift this woman
has given herself
to see the Aurora Borealis
as swirling, tumbling waves;
clouds as sky islands
in a celestial sea.
Before I left for my
long walk home,
she told me
when all is done,
she’ll return to her
tree cradled studio
where she’ll sit
and carve the wood
she’ll later ink
under the dark wave of
the sky that is her ocean.
Susan Slocum Dyer / © SSD
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Absolutely beautiful
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