when you find something better than what you thought you were looking for, it's hard to pass it up

It has, once again, been weeks and weeks since my last writing. Apologies, Ira. :) I am finding it more and more difficult to chain myself to the computer for any length of time to write anything. There is simply so much else that is competing for my attention. Alaska is still grand and I am still blissfully unaffected by homesickness. Although, that makes sense, because I am not sure I have ever had a "home". Kodiak Island is certainly becoming a home-y feeling place to me.
It is hard to imagine that I have been here for 10 weeks now. With another 7 to go. The weather has been spectacular the last few days, making all of the gray, drizzly days before seem worth it. The only thing that could make this summer better right now is watching a baseball game, beer in hand. I hope I make it back to the lower states in time to catch the end of the season.
Life here seems both eventful and boring simultaneously; something that I have grown to appreciate. My over-analysis of things, which has been an increasing burden as I age, seems to be receding. I find myself being reminded not to over complicate things which are simple and beautiful in nature. I have been practicing yoga more, giving myself time every morning to stretch and do at least a half hour; and trying to do so at night, but mostly failing. :) Doing it in the morning, looking out my open window to the deep, powerful water and still snow capped peaks behind it is enough to center me for whatever the day brings.
I am finding myself again having to make the decision of what to do at the end of summer, and where to go. As per usual, my inability to choose just one thing is making the impending end of the fishing season seem dreadful. I remember a time in my life (probably between 21 and 25) where every few weeks I would ask a friend, "do you think I should send my resume off to be a lion tamer in Prague?" or "well, there doesn't seem like anything left for me to do but sail from Alaska to New Zealand, does there?".
I kind of just assume that a new adventure will present itself at a time when it is feasible and I won't be able to say no. And, if it doesn't pan out, there seems to always be another adventure waiting in the wings. I've given up making myself anxious and crazy trying to make decisions about my future. I have no idea what will happen, I only know a few things that I want and many more that I don't want, and the only thing I can safely say about my future is that I will be there. It is getting harder and harder to imagine any place better to wake up to than this bay, though.

dare to be naive...

It seems to be that whenever I am somewhere or in something that naturally lends itself to poetry or beautiful words, they fail me. Maybe it is the overwhelming beauty of this place that renders it indescribable. Maybe it is that beauty suffusing my spirit that renders me speechless. Maybe it is both and many more things.
Last night, while out fishing in the channel, there was a faint rainbow forming over the mountain; watching it, really watching it, grow brighter and deeper, I realized that peace and simplicity have come easily to me here. I haven't had to seek it, it has found me. Granted, it is much easier to be slow and still and simple up here than it is in "the real world", because life here demands it. There is not much to get bogged down with up here.
Since I arrived, I have noticed that each time any of the village elders come into the store, they tell stories. Short stories, sometimes the same ones, to me, to each other, to the kids. There really are still story-tellers! It has been so interesting to hear some of their stories about their families first coming to Kodiak Island, about all their history, about the economical and environmental effects they experienced from the Exxon spill 20 years ago (an eery foreshadowing to the next 20 years in America's economic and environmental landscape). I am trying to soak up each bit of history that I can from their stories, and am eager to hear more.
I feel like a child at this time and place in my life. Spending evenings riding my bike from one end of the bay to the other, going fishing until well after I would normally be asleep, creating art from bits of rubbish on the beach. It is as if this is all a dream. Ahhhh.

"I wish to learn this language, not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue."

Larsen Bay has begun to feel less like a vacation and more like my current temporary home. Last week I went up into the village to participate in their annual clean up with the school. It was a really easy way for me to get to know some of the villagers better and I think it put them a bit more at ease with me. We all walked around the village picking up trash and afterwards, the Tribal Village Council had a little barbeque. Yesterday I went up to the school and taught the kids how to make origami. I brought my camera and, of course, didn't take one single photo. Oops! Imagine if you will, a school of about 20 kids, of all ages, and their beautiful colorful origami boxes, cranes and coin purses. :) It was tons of fun. Their last day of school is Thursday, so I am glad to have been able to do that with them. The closeness of this community is obvious and I am still, to be sure, an outsider. However, they seem to be warming up to me and I am enjoying getting to know them.

It is starting to green up around the island and the nights are getting warmer. (Read: not 30 degrees anymore.) I am anxiously awaiting the time when my cannery friends get their skiffs in the water so I can get out and go fishing each night after work. There has also been a slow trickle of new cannery workers arriving and, I believe, we now number close to 50. Woohoo!

I am falling deeply in love with these mountains and am awaiting the melting of the snow so that I can begin hiking and exploring them.

Ahhhhhh, Alaska.

If the mood is right, physical discomfort doesn't mean much.

Wow. It has been quite awhile since the last time I updated this thing. I decided, with a little help from a paranoid boss, to delete all of the previous posts, which primarily chronicled my crazy adventures at a previous job.

So, I will start fresh, which seems to fit the mood I am in lately. I've been in Alaska for 2 weeks now, which seemed to fly by faster than I could have imagined it would. Probably because for the last week we've been in a gross storm. It's been raining every day, with bursts of sunshine, and dominated by really fierce winds. On the days it is sunny, it is gorgeous. I've had a little bit of time off recently and have been craving some sun, so that I can ride my bike around the village.
The cannery, where I am living, sits at the edge of the bay, with the village just up the road. There are about 50 people in the village and 30 or 40 folks at the cannery, so far. We will get the bulk of the cannery employees in June, which will bring the total to about 250. It's still kind of crazy to me that the size of this village literally grows to 5 times its normal size every summer. I can hardly imagine what it will be like.
I've really been enjoying the solitude up here, and it has only recently begun to sink in what a strange thing this must be, to others, for me to want--to be in the middle of nowhere, nearly entirely isolated, with no phone and minimal outside contact to the world, save for a shady internet connection that doesn't work if there are clouds. I just find myself at such peace in places like this. I have been rereading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I find myself really relating to this passage(among many): "This is a great town," John says, "really great. Surprised there were any like this left. I was looking all over this morning. They've got stockmen's bars, high top boots, silver-dollar buckles, Levis, Stetsons, the whole thing...and it's real. It isn't just Chamber of Commerce stuff...In the bar down the block this morning they just started talking to me like I'd lived here my whole life."
I really appreciate the slower pace that people seem to move at in small towns. Everything feels intentional, without feeling calculated or contrived. It's interesting to me that one of the things that draws me to, and repels me from, places like this, is the very same thing: the community. I yearn to be somewhere where I can mostly be by myself, yet the places that seem most conducive to that, end up to be the places in which people create the most community. One might be drawn to areas where they are forced to rely on nature, and every once in awhile another human, and perhaps that teaches one to really trust. In themselves, in their community, in the power of nature. Perhaps.
And, perhaps I am at a seriously delirious stage of sleep deprivation. Time becomes pretty irrelevant in a place like this, where "night" is only 5 or 6 hours long. It's fascinating to me the way our circadian rhythms naturally adapt to our environment. I find myself not getting sleepy until the sun starts to set (around 10:30/11) even after working an 11 hour day. And every morning, without fail or alarm, my body awakens at 6 am. Just in time to see the remnants of a stunning sunrise.

Overall, I am settling more and more into comfort up here. This place is impossible not to love. Folks who've been up here for many years tell me that I will be sick of it by the end of the summer. I think what they mean is, I will be sick of them. I can't imagine becoming sick of this place.