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.
