sea legs

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Keely

My world revolves around boats: In just two months Geoff and I have traveled the full lengths of the Kantishna and the Muddy and hundreds of miles on the Chandalar. Geoff waterskiied on the Kantishna. I bought a packraft and nearly t-boned a cow moose in the middle of the North Fork. We ran Geoff’s boat aground in the Kantishna and I swore never to leave the house again without 1) a mosquito headnet, 2) a pair of neoprene booties, and 3) a comealong. Lyra took a beating in some Chandalar rapids. I took a break from the wilderness and spent a week in Maine playing games and sewing in the salon on Islander while the pogies ran up the Passagassawakeag. Now it’s dipnet week on the Kenai, but we’re taking today off to wash clothes and take showers and, indeed, use the internet. Besides, the gillnetters go out on Thursdays and scoop up all the salmon. Sometimes at night when I lie down in my bedroll (or couch, or – very occasionally – bed) on shore, I’d swear the world is rocking around me; I sometimes wonder if I’m losing my balance, but, looked at this way, it stands to reason I’d be uneasy on dry land this summer.

When we left Arctic on the first of June, I labeled our actionpackers: Camp, Food, Maintenance. The sun has now worn the sharpie away. This is what I hoped for when I came to Alaska: Looking in the mirror of my friendships, as I did when I went back east, I find myself profoundly changed. The wilderness crawls inside of you and fills you up with its spare and rugged reality, but it won’t leave, after a while, and you’re left gasping with the loneliness of it. I didn’t expect that. I was never good at small talk, but now I get lost in the weirdness of lines painted on parking lots, dogs on leashes their entire lives, the scads of everything at our fingertips. Gaping at the commonplace feels more natural than trying to communicate about things that I don’t understand anymore.
“I wish I had something – anything – in common with my brother.” I told Geoff over breakfast today.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I can’t think of a single thing we could talk about.”
I can’t really hold up my end of a casual conversation. To the extent that I was ever – what? normal? usual? inoffensive? culturally fluent, maybe – I think I’m not anymore. It’s sad and scary, and okay, too, in a way. Is it self-centered to imagine I am different? Probably. Does it matter? Not really. That kind of thing only matters in a context where there are other people, and in my context, there mostly aren’t.

Teaching doesn’t really qualify as authentic social interaction. In my classroom, I am myself, but no one sees me that way. I am my job, my role, my function. I am just this to my students and to almost everyone else in the community. Sometimes I feel like the picture of a person, a placeholder for a collection of ideas about teachers or outsiders. This, too, is lonely and isolating.

For days on the Chandalar, when smoke from a forest fire filled the sky, I wondered if the world had turned to ash, had no way of finding out without treating my concerns seriously, and wouldn’t that confirm the fragility of my sanity? I waited it out, and when we arrived in Venetie we found no zombies or invaders or horrible, transfixing TV news (outside of the ordinary horrible news). The next day, I bought a ticket for home, supposing this whole episode to be a pretty clear indication that I needed a break from isolation.

I’m not quite ready to commit to becoming someone who lives a life like that, where it’s reasonable to wonder if you’re the last woman on earth and to spend hours contemplating the ramifications of public arboreta.

I’m glad I’ve signed up for a couple years in Fairbanks to recalibrate my social skills, but I’m dreading it, too. I’ll miss the wilderness. I’m not sure I want to revert completely, but I don’t know how to live with a foot in two worlds. Is this a stupid problem, or is it the essence of the question for maybe the majority of people on earth?

I guess I mean to say that I feel off-balance lately. Shifting from the bush to the lower-48 was disorienting and alarming, and shifting gears again a week later was frustrating. I’ve spent a lot of time this month feeling vaguely off-kilter and uncomfortable, out of my element and then dissatisfied with my solution. “Challenge yourself,” Sean said, when I complained to him in Boston. “You can’t expect everything to be easy.”

Fair. You can’t live on a boat all the time and not expect to wobble when you step on shore.

On another note, I’ve been writing a lot lately, but not for the blog. I’ve been saving up some poetry and some essays, maybe for publication, assuming I can get my act together and actually put together some submissions. Wish me luck!

Revisiting Winslow Homer

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Keely

Yesterday, Sean and I went to the MFA in Boston. I love art museums, (though I can distinctly remember being bored to tears by them as a kid) and I could have spent much, much longer exploring the maze of galleries and exhibitions.

Sean in 8’x12′, an awesome piece about personal space and sprawl and scale in Mumbai

I loved the Megacities Asia exhibition and the gallery of Chinese furniture and the model ships and the very peaceful Buddha in the temple.

We also took a tour of the Americas wing and there paid a visit to some of the paintings of Winslow Homer. It was impossible, today, not to think of his paintings as we brought Islander down the Penobscot from Winterport in a drenching rain and pea soup fog.

“Look anonymous and heroic, Mom, I’m taking a Winslow Homer picture”

The Fog Warning, 1885

As we ran out with the tide, sliding through water still but for the constant bulletholing of raindrops, soaking slowly in the heavy, warm rain, Dad described the grey landscape of fog and water and sky almost the way I have been known to describe the snow and sky and mountains: it’s a thousand shades of gray, dissolving sound and land and the boundaries between this world, the next, the sky and the sea.

It’s beautiful out there, even on days when the horizon breaks down and water soaks into the sky.

A counterpoem from last week: Sleeping Inside

Tonight I slept
on the couch under the front window
and the rain blew in

I had taken my hammock in
Not wanting it to shred in the forecast winds
Not wanting to sleep light in dark rain

I woke up in the lightning night
With the rain soft and cool on my face, so glad
that the sky came to find me

I can’t seem to use a phone in the summer

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Keely

I’ve been all over the place this summer, from Anchorage to Boston to Brattleboro to Midcoast Maine to Fox Hollow Farm, and if you’ve tried to get in touch with me, I’m so sorry. I’ve been awful at phone calls and emails and every other kind of contact. I miss the routine solitude of my life in the village.

Nicole, I am so bummed I missed you in Anchorage. My old phone was very dead around that time and by the time I replaced it and figured out how to check my voicemail on the new machine, you were long gone. Cathy, I’ll give you a call this week and we’ll set up a visit in Maine.

My struggle with communication is just one way I’ve been having trouble adjusting to summer. I was on the T the other day in Boston and I just couldn’t shake the thought: People do this every day. I can’t believe people do this every day.

I know I’m spoiled. In the village, I almost never have to sit on my butt just to get from place to place. I absolutely never have to sit on my butt in a dank-smelling, grubby metal tube full of strangers.

I know the city has its perks: Sean has been taking sailing lessons, going to the art museum, and hosting ice cream socials (Margarita sorbet? Wasabi maple ice cream anyone?). There are restaurants, theaters, intriguing strangers and old friends.

Old friends are the best.

Boston is full of folks from college and from Arkansas. It’s so strange and wonderful to be surrounded by people I’ve known for such a long time.

Bethan gave an incredibly powerful and personal performance in Brattleboro after a year of circus training with NECCA. None of us remained dry-eyed.

I woke up a few days ago with Bre’s son crawling across my bed in the guest room. He has a great smile and sweet curls and a friendly nature, and he seems to be a fan of nori rolls (at least of smooshing them up and getting them all over people and things). Bre is the first of my close friends to have kids: I’ve never known a baby that I’m sure I’ll know forever. This is really something.

Tim inspired a really successful birthday gift. He and I are going backpacking before I head back to Alaska. Look out, wilderness, we’re back!

Now I’m in Ohio, and Jesse and Chelsea have filled their home with wonderful people, as usual. It’s busy and cheerful and warm and tasty and creative. I have my hammock in the woods for quiet space among the fireflies, and otherwise it’s all games and cooking and farm stuff and talk with important, beloved people.

Still, I miss the simplicity of life in the village.

Camped on the spit in Homer.

Dinner!

Mom in her garden, the climbing roses in bloom.

Rock On Spruce Spring Seat

Lobster!

The view from my hammock on the farm in Ohio.

Cowboy Boots in Cambridge

Posted on May 15, 2016 by spulsfort

I pulled on my cowboy boots yesterday for the first time in probably two years. The last time I distinctly remember wearing them was the End-of-School-Year Barbecue in Marianna, but I probably wore them a couple of times since then. For the last year or so, they have been collecting dust in storage. Then yesterday, I gave them a brief trial on my bike and decided they were suitable for a ride across the Charles to see Ian in Cambridge.

While I was riding, I thought about something my mom and Granddad would occasionally say, “You can take the man out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the man.” Aside from my family whom I love dearly, I have had a lot of negative associations with Texas. When I visit them we drive through the terrible urban sprawl of DFW; strip malls essentially line the highway the entire drive up North from the city to my Grandparent’s house, near the Oklahoma border. I think about the hubris and “Everything’s bigger in Texas”, and the consumer culture. And, of course, all my favorite politicians are from Texas. “Don’t Mess with Texas.”

But walking around Cambridge and Harvard, I proudly sported my boots, smiling as they reminded me about my connection with the Lone Star State. There were all types of people from all over the world, taking pictures, touching John Harvard’s gold shoe, but I was the only one in boots.

Still having the Texas in me, I now believe, means taking pride in what makes me unique. It means taking on big projects, big ideas, and actually doing something, not just talking. When I got back to Ian’s apartment, it was a physical struggle to take the boots off. On each baby toe, there was a huge blister.

Ice Lightning

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Keely

Our house totally just got struck by lightning. There was a flash of light and a crack in the kitchen, and then a shock of thunder that rattled the glass in the windows. That is not cool at all. The power’s still on and hopefully it will stay that way.

We went to town for a while to coldproof the plant babies in the greenhouse at Lee and to do laundry at our friends’ house (our washer froze solid a week or two ago, then busted). On the way home, we dodged downed limbs and listened to the rattle of sleet falling on the roof of the car. There was a message on the machine when we came in: no school tomorrow. I did a kitchen dance.

Today has been all about getting ready for the storm. I put on my mud shoes this morning and made sure the chickens had plenty of food and water, then turned on the lamp in the coop. I cut daffodils from the woods and brought them in so that we can enjoy them a little longer. After warming up for a while, Sean and I went out together into the nearly-freezing rain and covered a row of our garden with a sheet of plastic to help keep the fragile baby greens alive. Hopefully the wind won’t tear the cover right off like it has in the past.

In the greenhouse at school, Sean and his students have planted flats of flowers and veggies for spring gardens. Last cold snap the soil froze solid, and, though the plants survived, we decided to take steps to prevent it from happening again. We used some sheets of styrofoam and constructed a sort of insulated box on the ground for the flats. We had boiled a quart of water and wrapped it in a jacket to keep the heat in, and this we tucked into the insulated box to help moderate the temperature.