The summer feels like it is slipping through my hands already. The fireweed feels like it is racing to the tip of the stalk. It’s easy to idealize this life in summer. The fireweed blooms, the blueberries, the harvest from the garden. They all feel so perfect.
But there’s a flip side.
Right now, I can’t see the difficulty of winter. From my warm perch in the loft, as the summer sun is setting over my shoulder, winter seems like a cozy dream. A lovely opportunity to slow down. A chance to cuddle up.
I think it suits me that the seasons here change so drastically. It feels like traveling to me, only I stay put and it is the leaves that are moving. They poke their heads out in spring, asking if I mind if they move in. And of course, I am elated to see their green little faces poking out of the ground and along the branches and even through cracks in the asphalt, because it feels like a long lost friend that I worried I would never see again.
And then it’s summer again, a full-blown nonstop leaf party. They are everywhere, flaunting themselves and showing all they got and getting drunk on sunshine. They obscenely ejaculate flowers and berries and they don’t care who sees.
But by September, the leaves are already packing their bags. There’s a beauty to their farewells, as if they are waving kerchiefs of yellow and orange as their train pulls out of the station and the fog seeps in, until the whole world is wet and white.
As for winter, I don’t know how to describe it yet. I have spent only one in Anchorage, and it was so different than the ones I spent in Fairbanks that it hardly seems fair to try to describe an ‘Alaskan’ winter.
Anchorage that year was a dreary slog. But Fairbanks’s winters are the ultimate travel. Beyond the last frontier.
You put on your space suit and waddle around outside like the kid from a Christmas story, even though you are a grown ass woman and you are wearing thong under all those layers. Events take place that shouldn’t happen on Earth. Your nose hair freezes. Your eyelashes grow icicles. You become a hoarfrost monster after only a few minutes outside, covered in crystals like jagged armor over your clothes and skin. And when you reach the safety of the mothership, you have to pass through arctic entries–small rooms between the front door and the main house that act as airlocks. Inside, you begin to melt. All of those crystals of ice surrender to the furnaces and you are suddenly sopping wet.
But no matter, you are wearing so many layers that no one could ever beat you at strip poker and surely you can do without one or two. I never did learn how to layer properly. It’s a wonder I survived.
So, I guess what I am trying to say is that we’re deep enough in summer now that I can look back at winter warmly. And there will come a time in winter when my feet are itching to journey back to where I am right now.
I really love your rich metaphors and imagery. Original idea that you stay put but travel through the season. Wishing you an upcoming cuddly winter with a warm house to return to each day and sufficient food to fuel body, mind, and soul.
Thank you so much!
Jaclyn – It has been over 70 years since my Uncle Ced Guion returned from spending about 6 years in Anchorage during World War II. My vision of the area is based on that time and place. I’m looking forward to learning about the area as it is today. Happy posting.
Perhaps because I live in a hot place, I often wonder how anyone could live permanently in, say, Alaska. But clearly it is a lack of understanding on my part, as humans, and many other beings, thrive there. Surely the changing seasons add a richness to life in Alaska.
As a Florida girl, I totally worried that my toes would fall off in an Alaskan winter. It turns out, you just need good boots!
Winters here on the Kenai certainly aren’t as spectacular as those in Fairbanks. I have to say, though, I’m not sure yet which I prefer. There is such a brutal beauty about Fairbanks winters that makes these mild, wet winters here seem anemic in comparison. But then again, no frozen nose hairs.
I totally agree about the brutal beauty. I haven’t spent a whole winter on the Kenai yet, so I am curious about if it’s any different than Anchorage. Looking forward to finding out. Thanks for stopping by!
Very engaging descriptions, especially about winter. I sometimes feel I am in a Game of Thrones story. Winter is coming. I have to cut wood. I live in the mountains of SW New Mexico and we don’t have the kind of winters you are talking about. But in a yurt, I get cold. I need to burn wood in my wood stove.