8/27/2023 1 Comment Goodbye, Alaska...As a lifelong Alaskan, I’m ashamed to admit that I have become jaded to its beauty. Residents of any city often have a cynical viewpoint of tourists and fail to acknowledge the wondrous and newlywed-nature of a tourist’s eyes. When I visited Kansas for the first time, what were seen as boring and dead flatlands to many Kansans were incredibly vast stretches of stark beauty to me. I had never seen anything like it before. I was a newlywed to the landscape. But the mountains of Alaska? I’ve seen them since I was a toddler. They are glorious, without a doubt. I’ve also ignored them most days.
Many who have been blessed with a passionate longevity in their appreciation for the beauty of Alaska would probably be puzzled as to how any Alaskan could look out their window with indifference. I’m not proud of the indifference, but it has become an unwanted traveler on my back. It follows along behind me, pulling just enough of the saturation out of the colors around me to stop the whole picture from coming to life. Sights that should be met with awe are met with shrugs instead, and that’s if I even bother to notice them in the first place. One of the biggest problems with moving (until now) has been the perception that I’ve had more time than I did. I’m thankful that I knew my most recent trips to the beautiful towns of Homer and Seward would be my last. At that point, however, moving was still not quite real. Why didn’t I look at those mountains longer? Why didn’t let myself get overtaken with all the wonderful memories of all my other trips to these places? What other last times have I been overlooking? Can I have them back if I promise to hold on to them tightly this time? No… sorry. They’re gone. Can I ask you a favor, my friend? Please, if you find yourself in one of these amazing towns on an overcast day, put an ambient album on in your headphones (might I recommend Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno? It will change your life). Then stand on the muddy shore and let the smell of the ocean fill your nose. Let the grey gloom of the clouds envelop your soul. Let the enormous sense of well-being that can only come on murky days overtake you as completely as it can. There is a transcendent sense of life that comes with moments like these that can’t be described, it can only be felt. Katie and I start our long drive down the ALCAN tomorrow morning (August 28). This departure date has always been off in the distance and stuffed behind the clutter in our brains. But our alarms are going to go off in the morning and pull us straight out of our sleep and into the rest of our new lives. Tomorrow has always been weeks away. Now, tomorrow has rounded the corner, and it is charging straight at us, hungry and horns sharpened. Soon, there is going to be a last time I drive these streets. There is going to be a last time I stand in our backyard or pull out of our driveway. There is going to be a last time I sit in the shadow of the tree just outside our living room window, whose leaves have grown alongside us for the last seven years. There is going to be a last time, outside of my memories, that I see the faces of the incredible people that have made my time in Alaska so wonderful. Some of these "last times" have already happened. There is a devastating beauty to these “last times,” because if we can understand and acknowledge them as such, the reality of the moment possesses us, and our appreciation for the things we’ve been taking for granted suddenly expands immensely. It’s like the last days of a head cold, when your airway suddenly opens again, and you can draw in a breath that isn’t strained though swollen membranes and lung slop. We’ve taken hundreds of millions of breaths in our lives, but suddenly breathing is special to us again. The last time this house had any sense of emptiness to it, it was to welcome Katie and I into its space. The emptiness was an invitation to let us paint with our own brushes on its walls, and to let us fill its corners with bookshelves, laundry hampers, and baskets overflowing with pet toys. Now, the emptiness means saying “goodbye.” The emptiness is a hand on our shoulder and a quivering thought whispered in our heads, “It’s been wonderful.” This isn’t our last time in Alaska. There is too much for us here to never return. But the filters and screens between myself and my appreciation for the things I have been taking for granted all these years are beginning to erode as the inescapable reality of time and distance finally arrives. How long until we see these people, these places, and these things again? I can’t be sure. The reality that I may not see all of this again for a very long time has made everything from mundane trips to the grocery store to the grand mountains that I’ve been looking at since I was a child absolutely burst with beauty. As much as it shatters me, I love these last times. I love them because to do anything other than love them would be to take them all for granted again. I love every fresh breath I’m given as I’m pulled from this self-inflicted head cold of disillusionment and indifference. We are stepping away from a lot of last times. We are also stepping toward so many firsts. Thank you for everything, Alaska. And goodbye. For now.
1 Comment
Laura
8/27/2023 04:02:07 pm
I have enjoyed reading these posts so much, Jon! I eagerly await many more in the future. :)
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Jon SchulzArchivesCategories |