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Tonight, almost one year exactly since we left for the Mackenzie, I find myself in the far north again. This is my first time flying up, and watching the sun swing around refusing to set was glorious. There is something unmistakable about late night sunlight. The sunset gets somehow stale as it goes on and on, some quality not captured by the angle alone. I had missed it, really.
But on landing, the sight of scrubby alpine firs made me uneasy. The truth is, as much as I'm drawn to it, I really hate much of this environment. I'm afraid I'm going to end up one of the people who keep coming back time after time, caught in a dysfunctional relationship with a vast part of the Earth. Robert Service had it right.
On arriving at Ted Stevens International Airport (and how wonderfully ironic that name might just look come November), I found that the external pouch on my baggage had "mysteriously" come open, spilling everything out. This was where I had stuck all my tools when declawing myself, including my trusty Leatherman Charge XTi. It was with me in freefall, in caves and on hikes, while canoeing a thousand miles, there to open uncounted packages and grab at anything too small/hot/unpleasant to handle myself. And now some sticky-fingered TSA reject is going to pawn it for beer money. I can handle losing beloved objects -- it happens. But to have something that had been with me through so much suffer so a ignominious fate... It just isn't right.
And now I find out that Rufus died. It's just not right.
But on landing, the sight of scrubby alpine firs made me uneasy. The truth is, as much as I'm drawn to it, I really hate much of this environment. I'm afraid I'm going to end up one of the people who keep coming back time after time, caught in a dysfunctional relationship with a vast part of the Earth. Robert Service had it right.
On arriving at Ted Stevens International Airport (and how wonderfully ironic that name might just look come November), I found that the external pouch on my baggage had "mysteriously" come open, spilling everything out. This was where I had stuck all my tools when declawing myself, including my trusty Leatherman Charge XTi. It was with me in freefall, in caves and on hikes, while canoeing a thousand miles, there to open uncounted packages and grab at anything too small/hot/unpleasant to handle myself. And now some sticky-fingered TSA reject is going to pawn it for beer money. I can handle losing beloved objects -- it happens. But to have something that had been with me through so much suffer so a ignominious fate... It just isn't right.
And now I find out that Rufus died. It's just not right.