Long Day Done

The first call came from friends, standing at the murky water’s edge. Our cabin-house on the Copper was about to fall into the river. First: “the cabin is 20’ from the river”; next, 5 hours later and with a bit more excitement, “10 more feet of bank has sloughed off”, and the next day with alarming urgency, “it’s a goner if you don’t act fast.” .

The Copper house is prone to be whisked off its foundation and catapulted into sludge brown waters, heaving itself into the delta that merges with other streams and rivers, and finally, bouncing off into the sunset, riding the ocean current with all our cherished memories and labors etched deep inside its walls. Luckily we found a mover nearby who was happy to take our business. Friends salvaged the metal fish table, wood benches that ringed the fire pit, and a giant birdhouse I gave to my husband the first Christmas we spent in the house after completion.

The Copper is ferocious, with a silt load second only to the Yukon and rising velocity from glacier run-off. This year, frozen ground, a late spring snowfall and a piercing sun that melted the ground much faster than usual, caused ice jams upriver and severe flooding; the most extensive flooding in the local elder’s memory.

We found a mover, got to work, and are now heading into our second week of building forms, pouring concrete, and erecting foundation walls. Saved by the skin of our pants and non-stop laboring.

We built this house out-of-pocket and board-by-board over a five-year period. During those times when you’re 20 feet up on a ladder nailing tongue and groove on the ceiling, or negotiating icy scaffolding during an early winter, you wonder.

You wonder, why at this age (in our sixties), are we doing this?

You wonder, how many more years before we shouldn’t be climbing ladders, hauling bags of concrete, and nail-gunning 12’ boards into place?

Though I didn’t make my occupation by way of physical labor, I always liked working outdoors, sweating while getting a job done, and feeling sore muscles the next morning, proof of a good day’s work. I’d done Forest Service work in the Dakotas, hiking through ponderosa pine forests and marking trees to be cut; and experienced invigorating round-up work in sunny Wyoming, roping cattle in preparation for branding and castration.

Dust devils. The smell of horses. A never-ending vista of cloudless blue sky.

And the camraderie with real cowboys. Retired now, my occupation as a speech therapist trumped that of an imagined rancher’s wife, because admittedly, my idea of physical labor is a highly romanticized version.

I’ll work outdoors though, until I’m no longer able. And the answers to all my why questions are simple:

Catching red salmon in a fish wheel on the Copper, filling the freezer to last all winter long, and gifting food to friends is a yearly ritual that has engraved a current, deep as the river, in my bones. A connection to the land is honored and appreciated, like a gardener’s immersion in cultivating her home-grown food and flora.

When the work is done, we’ll again sit for hours, sipping a beer and doing nothing but watching the river roll by, but in the meantime, a lot of work can be done in the 19 hours and 46 minutes of daylight we are blessed with today.

This is the year of records. The flood of 2013…the most extensive in the local’s living memory.

And another long day, done.

Over 200 Grandchildren? Elder Katie John's Legend

If you were a person, both young and middle-aged, wearing a white scarf, a white ribbon, or a white bandana at Katie John’s celebration of life, you were one of  her grandchildren, great grandchildren, or great-great grandchildren. 

Born in Slana, Alaska in 1915 (died 5/31/13) Katie had 14 natural children, and adopted six more throughout her lifetime; a life described by teaching her children the traditional ways of living off the land, respecting elders, and knowing and honoring the ways of your ancestors. Remarkably, Katie and her husband John, never accepted welfare for the care of their family.

I drove from our cabin in Tazlina to the village of Mentasta to take part in the festivities with the Ahtna people from neighboring villages, as well as people from around the world who respected and loved this aspiring woman. There was still some ice on the lakes in early June. And many more travelers than usual on the Tok Cutoff Rd.; I knew many were headed to the tiny Athabascan village. 

Katie John was a living legend in her time.

A beloved leader, Katie’s legend is tied to her decades long struggle in challenging the United States government in the fight for the subsistence hunting and fishing rights for all Alaska Natives. 

Finally in 2001, the Ninth District Court of Appeals ruled in favor of protectiing these rights. Her legal battle was a long, drawn-out fight inspiring indigenous native peoples from all over the world.

In 2001, Katie was awarded an honorary doctorate of law degree from the University of Alaska for her spirit and determination in challenging the government and state of Alaska in ways they had never been tested before. She believed in the right to feed her people.

Demonstrators in Anchorage proudly marched with signs saying “Don’t mess with Katie,” during those heated times. I’m heartened she was able to witness a positive conclusion in her people’s favor, a decade before she passed away.

A proud woman of the Athabascan tribe Katie saw many “firsts” during her time on earth. She grew up in a time when people used dog teams to pack their supplies, walked to where they wanted to go, and harvested game for food. Katie witnessed the future: the progression of dog sleds to planes and cars. The introduction of electric power in the villages, satellite TV into people's homes and, of course, the Internet.  Imagine all the changes that have occurred over nearly 100 short years.

At 97 years of age, she had seen the speed of drastic change, but still held on to the battle for the right to derive her family's sustenance from the land. One cannot stay tied to their traditional culture consuming junk foods found in the small village stores. 

Today there are still indigenous people across the globe who practice lasting ties to the land, and their traditional ways deserve our respect.

Katie's children said this about her: she taught a strong work ethic; she was honest, trusting, forgiving, and showed great love for everyone she met.

A life well-lived from a long-ago era; may you rest in peace, Katie John.

Quiet Solitude or Lonely Isolation?

I took this photo of books on a shelf in an old remote cabin we explored on Iliamna Bay. The cabin was filled with junk; an old stove turned on its side, clothing remnants, tools, a sleeping bag, cans of food. It was obvious someone had tried to live in this place a long, long time ago.

The row of books looked strange and creepy, like a body in various stages of decomposition; the pages deteriorating and oozing into each other, worn out and exhausted by time and weather.

Immediately Chris McCandless came to mind. Chris was a spiritual seeker who came to Alaska to excavate his heart, like so many others who take to the woods on a vision quest of sorts, testing their ability to survive, asking themselves the big questions and hoping to find answers in the wilderness.

He burns his trust fund money, travels the country, and finally makes his way to the far north, seeking   solitude, self-sufficiency and what he called the "ultimate freedom." After isolating himself (settling into an abandoned school bus), he shoots game, able to sustain himself for a while, but eventually the harsh realities of wilderness-living set in. Unfortunately, he never made it out alive, having starved to death (after eating a poisonous wild plant).

In the end, McCandless realizes the importance of the very thing he was trying to escape, that of sustaining and nurturing human relationships. Society may have "tied him down" but isolation from others is what ultimately killed him. I highly recommend the movie, Into The Wild (Netflix), about his daring adventures and final demise.

I took a magnifying glass to the photograph of books, trying to decipher what the seeker was reading. You can tell a lot about a person by perusing his/her bookshelf. Or maybe not (perusing my own, there is everything from Reverence to the Anarchist's Cookbook), but still I wondered.

Who was he? Why did he come to this old, run-down cabin? What was he searching for, living in such a remote place?

Only two of the books revealed their identification. Youth is Wasted on the Young is a collection of quotations and extracts examining the wisdom of aging. Wry comments taken from life and literature capture the wisdom of growing older, and the adventurous spirit of youth we all experience.

"In youth we run into difficulties; in old age difficulties run into us." (Josh Billings noted about Youth). Maybe the seeker was contemplating the rigors of aging; was he middle-aged, or already an old man who chose to live in peace far away from civilized society? Surely it's not uncommon for people to feel alone and isolated as they age (especially after losing a partner, experiencing an illness, or not maintaining close family ties).  Whoever tried to eek out a life in this cabin was doing so by choice, escaping the perceived confines of their own town and community.

Testing his limits and abilities, living life fully on a razor's edge, becoming one with nature, or trying to escape a tortured past?  Who knows?

The other book, A Place for Noah, is a story about the challenges the writer, Josh Greenfield, experienced raising a child with multiple handicaps. Noah was born with developmental delays; he did not speak intelligibly, and was dependent on his family for all his physical needs. Noah's brother, Karl, vacillates between his anger at Noah for the sacrifices his family must make in their day-to-day caregiving role, and a deep love and sorrow for his brother's circumstance. Karl does not want his brother to be institutionalized (though he is for a short period of time), yet finds it difficult to fold Noah into the normal activities he enjoys with his family and friends. Noah is an outcast with serious, lifelong challenges.

Both pieces of work reveal this: the experience of  not quite fitting in with society at large; a feeling-sense of not belonging to the normal, youth-worshipping culture. By choice or by chance, many of us may at times feel we don't belong, or we are outside the group, looking in.

Ever feel that way? Maybe it is because we are always changing and evolving in the life cycle, growing into the person we want to be, and at the same time, letting go of old habits and ways of being. So at times ones feels off-kilter, in limbo or in a suspended animation.

Taking drastic measures to isolate oneself in the wilderness may be a soulful, life-enhancing venture.

But sooner or later, you have to walk out of the woods and hold hands with your fellow man.

Adventure is Out There

A shipwreck. A volcano shawled in snow. Blue, glassy seas.

We started our 60 mile journey from Homer, Alaska under perfect blue skies for a 3 day excursion to Iliamna Bay and Iniskin Bay on the western side of Cook Inlet. The excitement of motoring to a remote landscape we’d never seen before to beach comb for fossils and explore an old shipwreck site was thrilling and fed our never-ending, insatiable desire for adventure.

Weather is always the number one factor when considering this ocean trek, and we had a small window of time and low tide to make the trip. A memorial, of sorts, for our friend and companion, Steve Lloyd, who has explored this rugged coastline before; he is the author of Farallon, Shipwreck and Survival on the Alaska Shore.

His fascinating book tells the story of the treacherous winter of 1910 when the Alaska Steamship Company’s  Farallon struck the jagged Black Reef, stranding 38 men in the dead of winter, and how they survived day after day, week after week on the treeless, freezing and desolate shore.

A more barren, forbidding, forsaken place it would be hard to find…Shipmasters who know the place shun it as they would the gates of Hades. –John E. Thwaites, Mail Clerk, S.S. Farallon

We progressed cautiously along the legendary Black Reef and motored into Iliamna Bay that is ringed by rugged, scenic, remote country where cliffs hover over jagged surf-lashed rocks. Hardly the gates of Hades this time of year; we were stunned at the beauty and grandeur of the bay. Shuffling to shore on a dingy, we hopped off and explored the beaches, finding ammonite and petrified wood, kelp beds, volcanic rock caves and melting snow trickling into waterfalls down the mountainous terrain. At Iniskin Bay we explored an old cabin strewn with remnants of perhaps an old trapper, boatman, or spiritual seeker attempting to carve out a life in this remote and rugged place. 

Quinn, the Eskimo dog perched on a rock; he prefers ice over water

Fire on the beach. Eating hot soup out of the can, bread, hot tea and cookies…we rested for a while between explorations under a pair of circling eagles and the long bright hours of daylight.

We imagined the struggle of crewman surviving on depleted food supplies, trudging daily through knee deep snow to retrieve willow branches for their fires, sleeping in makeshift tents with just the clothes on their backs, in windy sub-zero temperatures.

And how five brave men, who upon leaving the group, went for help in a dory and crossed the treacherous waters of Shelikof Strait enroute to Kodiak. Five brave men who endured a blinding snow storm on ice caked seas, feet wrapped in burlap, in near-starving condition…and alerted the outside world of the Farallon’s fate.

In our windy slumber around a driftwood campfire, we thought of how well we would sleep that night: in the blue surge, under a pink moon rising over the menacing Black Reef of Iliamna Bay.

Doodle Mind and Writing

24 x 24 acrylic

The idea for this painting originated in Italy; after observing a tiled, stylized cross in a church, the shape reminded me of Native American capes that people wear at village dances and potlatches. I am deep in the process of writing a fiction project about a Yup'ik boy who comes of age while enduring the hardship of his best friend's suicide, in combination with his love for a visiting teacher who is, at best, cavalier with his feelings. Post high school, he travels to New Mexico to attend art school, and to his astonishment, realizes an expanded and compelling worldview. He finds, through sculpture and painting, the beginnings of renewed hope and healing; a newly fabricated sense of self and over-arching purpose that guides his future actions. In the end, he marries a woman from his village home, fathers a baby (with fetal alcohol syndrome), and carves out a life, fraught with pain and difficulty, though deeply lived with appreciation and great love.

Much of this derives, I'm sure, of my love for the Alaskan and New Mexico landscapes and people. Both  of them gritty, raw, wild, astoundingly beautiful. One whose winter sun barely clips the horizon for several long, dark months; another whose summer sun cracks the desert ground into patchworks of brittle clay. I am drawn explicably to both, and icons of both worlds, though largely imagined, are evident in this painting.

Donato Di Zio

At a museum in Florence, I bought a book of Donato Di Zio's work in pen and ink. I have no idea what it says, as the text is entirely in Italian, but his remarkable drawings are so engaging I couldn't put the book down; it just had to ride home in my backpack so I could peruse its contents many times over.  

Some of his work is reminiscent of a Native American style of sorts; at least that's what came to mind upon first viewing. So fluid with motion, and little color to distract. I love how he uses thousands of little sperm-like creatures to make the piece come alive with movement.

Donato Di Zio

The Japanese artist, Sagaki Keita creates amazing drawings of classic works of art and other iconic images with a whimsical twist--look closely: the drawings are in fact made up of hundreds of cartoonish doodles.



I guess you could say he has raised doodling to a fine art!

Painting and drawing and collage-ing helps tremendously in igniting the process of writing for me.  The act of drawing (on paper with pens & paint; not Photoshop...which has another purpose) loosens the over-structured, root-bound approach I often take (hold-over from graduate school maybe...all those papers) and  lets in a deeper, more soulful indulgence to create without rules. 

I sorely need that, and give myself permission to sketch and paint and take photographs for no real or imagined immediate purpose; except the knowing that you never know. 

You never know how an image or poem or doodle may be used at a later time, and weave its golden thread through another fresh and creative project.

Ode to Mother. But This One's Different

It All Happens in a Flash

Have you ever found yourself walking down the street, lost in thought when suddenly you notice a flash of perception, such as seeing a reflection in a plate glass window...and you pause?

One moment you are thinking of what you'll prepare for dinner that evening, and the next, without shifting your gaze, you are looking at the sky, or trees, or buildings or people reflected off the shiny glass.

For a moment, your thinking mind stops thinking and you enjoy an instant flash of perception. Within seconds, you are back in your head again, where conceptualizing thoughts stir round and round in the great washing machine of the mind.

These small gaps in thinking occur all the time, briefly, where you are shot out of conceptual thought and into a pleasant, vivid perceptual experience.

Many years ago, when we were house hunting in the Eagle River valley, where we live now, I experienced a very vivid flash of perception that stayed buried in my mind. We were looking at a house deep in the valley and all I remember about the visit is the flash of perception I experienced there.

I was standing outside looking around the yard when my attention was drawn to the expansive "great room" window facing east. The glass reflected the alpenglow of white capped mountains and the Eagle Glacier at the valley's terminus. For just a few moments, I was stunned by the beauty and I knew clearly, all at once, that this was where I wanted to live. The moment was captured. This was the so called "money shot." Gone was the deliberation of floor plans, well logs, property lines and in its place a sudden rich flash of perception connected the dots. Even though we didn't buy that particular house, I knew instantly (but not consciously) I wanted to live in this valley, in a house that reflected trees and mountains and sky.

In The Practice of Contemplative Photography, Andy Karr and Michael Wood explain further: Flashes of perception occur only when there is a gap in the thinking process. They happen in natural breaks in the flow of conceptuality where you stop thinking and just observe.

When a strong perception provokes a break in thinking, conceptual mind stops in its tracks. Staying with the flash of perception has a quality of motionlessness; you are not distracted, jumping at every little thing that happens and getting caught up in it. You don't project out. You just allow yourself to be in the stillness of the moment, appreciating whatever you see. These breaks take place all the time, but generally slip by unnoticed. When we have the intention to recognize them, these breaks become much easier to spot.

The mind is free from preoccupation, and this is when the eyes clearly see.

The thinking comes a few minutes later, though. Consider this photo. I am standing on the deck, shooting back into the house. An interesting array of objects come into view; you can see the stained glass window and a lamp in the house yet you are also aware of the chairs and table out on the deck...and further out, the trees and mountains. Items appear to be floating in space and are not connected to each other in a meaningful way. Interesting. There were no expectations about whether I was getting a good or a bad shot; this juxtaposition of objects is simply what I saw, what was unexpectedly perceived.

Here I am shooting into the bedroom, my eye goes in one window and out another revealing brown trees and a cold gray sky. Mountains tower over framed photographs on the wall above our bed. The  landscape here has not yet revealed all things green. The crocus and daffodils are still stalled under an icy ground. Snow still shawls our mountains.

But I wait patiently, with camera in hand.  I will watch for new and rich experiences in real time,  in the flash perceptions I'm aware enough to notice without labeling, categorizing and over thinking.

Just get the shot with a refreshed mind and the images will speak for themselves.


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Be Dare and Bare

In our backyard shop-artroom, I am working on a mosaic for our Copper River cabin; a stylized salmon spawning scene that is played out year after year when the reds run aplenty, and we are blessed with the bounty of the catch. A few more months of cutting, shaping and molding until the piece is complete & ready for installation.

Because so many ideas and projects get backed up in my shop, I feel compelled to assign a completion date so I can move on to the next piece. What I've discovered lately is the fun of working on multiple projects at once; if the creative juices begin to lag on one, I can crossover onto another for a while and go back and forth between painting and cutting glass.

I listen to music often, noting lines from favorite tunes and writing them on the walls (no worries; the walls are unfinished and meant to be scribbled on) as I'm dancing about from light table to glass grinder to work bench. So I had the idea of extracting lines from some of my favorite songs, and doing a sketch or painting or collage to match the mood and content.

One day I was viewing art in a local gift shop when I saw my idea being played out...well, almost. The artist rendered lines from various songs in a cornucopia of fonts, each one attractive and unique. Fonts have their own reach and beauty (http://www.fontspace.com )
and designers from all over the world are happy to share their creations with crafters and 
artists. It's captivating how a font in and of itself can carry so much emotional weight.

Back to my idea of taking a song line and crafting a piece of art. Spontaneity is key...listen, feel...turn up the volume, listen some more and then paint, draw, collage.

"The bittersweet between my teeth, trying to find the in-between..." is from the song, Young Blood by The Naked and Famous. I am indebted to my adult children for continually keeping me in step with their generation of music. I absolutely love these guys. Ah, youth.

"What a shot you could be if you could shoot at me with those angry eyes..." from the song Angry Eyes by Loggins and Messina. An oldie's favorite. Grrr.

"And it's good and it's true, let it wash over you..." from the song, River's Edge by Great Lake Swimmers. Their music is down-to-earth and ethereal at the same time.

"Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup..." from the song, Across the Universe sung by Fiona Apple. I admit, I like Fiona's version better than Lennon's (blasphemy!)...it's mellow and hauntingly dreamy.

Live vibrantly, not perfectly. Dare to bare it, as Jan Phillips says. Her inspirational words of wisdom never fail to provide guidance:

"We are healed by creation and the creation of others. We are healed when we transform the events of our lives into other shapes that can be of use---into stories and poems, music and films."

David DiSalvo offers a more straight forward thought on the human heart's longing to create: 

"Anyone who says 'I don't have a creative bone in my body,' is seriously underestimating their skeleton. More to the point, they are drastically undervaluing their brain. Creativity is an integral part of being human, and to deny its expression is like denying the expression of other crucial human elements that we intuitively realize we'd be miserable without."

Or, on a lighter note, consider Albert Einstein: 

"Creativity is simply intelligence having fun."

And there is always more room for fun in this world.

It's Never Just Rain

Far off. In a field, I am running toward a river. My dog flailing at my side. Camera slung around my neck; snow crunching under my boots, patches of sheer delicate ice flattened with each footfall. 

Out of breath. Over land. Sun crusted on uneven ground I stumble and angry tears come and I don't know why except to think that the world is brushing up too close to my skin. The evocation of lacy ice and silver snow is beautiful, isn't it, and yet it is never just beauty but something crushing and shattering and annihilating just like it is never just rain, but something with the potential to drench and drown. What lies beneath the loveliness are unbearable aberrations: attractive well-educated boys with bombs in their backpacks or holy, abusive two-faced priests who never serve justice; beauty and beast, gorgeous and ugly, foxy charmers that delude over and over, again. Words never and always are just as impossible to convey how I feel dragged through the mud on this perfect day under a brilliant sun, far off in a field running toward a river, moving carelessly, skirting obstacles and landing on my knees, fallen down.