'til November

It's mid-November, and the weather reflects it. A steady drizzle of rain hits the snow like acid, burrowing into the pockmarks and emerging in gray streams of slush on the city streets. Evening's coming and everything's gray, monotone, shadowless, as you're driving toward the Spit with a camera that only has one shot left on it. You're heading due south on the narrow strip of land, so you scarcely notice the sun slipping below the cloudline into the thin sliver of clear sky to the west. You don't have time to notice because the change is instantaneous anyway - as sudden as a camera flash, the distant shoreline erupts in a magnetic shade of turquoise you never even imagined existed in nature. It startles you so much that you pull over that second, like one of those finger-waving tourists that just spotted a the hindside of a bear, and you get out of your car, and take that one picture. Then, when you look at the image reflected on the tiny camera screen, washed of all its color and surprise, it almost breaks your heart, but not quite.

Futures

Today I interviewed a local writer, a longtime resident that these Alaska-types refer to as "old-timers" or "sourdoughs" though no self-respecting Alaskan outside the Chamber of Commerce uses that "s" word. He's just the type that grew up on a homestead, remembers the '64 earthquake ... a longtime resident. They're a minority in Alaska.

As often happens during a phone interview, he turned the tables on me toward the end.
"You new here?" he asked as I was trying to wrap things up.
"Yeah. I just moved here two months ago, from Idaho." (with the apologetic tone I tend to develop when I tell people just how new I am.)
"You like it here?"
"Sure. It's a beautiful place."
"It is. So why'd ya move here?"
"To Homer?"
"To Alaska."
(At this point it's getting close to lunch, and the conversation has rambled on for nearly a half hour.) "I don't know. To live in Alaska."
"Is that right?"
(silence from me. Of course that's the reason, the absolute truth, but it sounds a more than just a little silly when said out loud.)
"Yeah. Lots come up here just to be up here. Most are just trying to get away from something they left behind."
(a pause on both ends. I'm thinking he wants some kind of further justification from me, a good story to match his yarn about the time the Spit almost sunk into the sea. He's probably just reflecting on whether he wants a hamburger or spam helper for dinner.)
Finally I say, "Well, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me .... "
And so on.

The people are strange in Alaska. But they have a worldview colored by quiet truths few others would ever see. Maybe it's the drawn-out darkness and cold, the solitude and stark landscape that demands silent reflection. I don't know. I can't help but wonder if this stranger on the phone had me pegged all along.

Yikes

So I know this is a diversion from my regular subject matter, but I saw this rather unflattering picture pop up on Geoff's rotating screen saver today and instantly thought "yikes." I didn't even recognize it as myself at first, but after a few minutes I just had to dig through the archives and look. Sure enough, I came across a photo taken in June 2004 at a friend's wedding, and sure enough, it's me. Blah. I guess I really don't have a very observant self image, but I think now I finally understand why I weigh nearly 30 pounds less than I did at the height of my post bike-trip weight binge. I used to think that the numbers on the scale were a big joke and I hadn't actually changed much at all. Hope I have. Hope I actually have. Anyway, the reason I post it on the WWW is sort of akin to putting a butt-crack picture on the refridgerator. It's an effective way of saying to myself, "44 oz. Pepsi = BAD! Step away! Step away!"

Learning to ski

So I took the new cross country skis out for a little slide today. It was my second time ever - the first being at least four years ago. It was an experience that left both my ego and knees so bruised that I put the memory out of my mind to the point of repression. But I remembered today as I snapped into my brand new bindings and started to slide forward ... wait ... I’ve been here before. It was the kind of thing that comes flooding back in a moment of silent dread ... the borrowed boots that were too small, the pair of battered skis waxed too much and a small misstep that sent me careening into a creek.

But it’s funny how much you can learn about something in the space of four years, even when you haven’t revisited it even once. Since that humbling first experience, I learned to downhill ski, took up bicycling for the first time since I was a child, learned to ride with 60 pounds of weight dangling from the frame, began riding in mud and gravel and even snow. My balance has improved; I’m a little stronger and a little less afraid of eating snow (tastes much better than sand, you know). So when I started sliding beyond control today, I just pulled the other foot forward, and kept going for three miles.

Sure, it wasn’t all sunshine and giggles ... I was dusted by a few skate skiers on the groomer, lost the trail and had to tramp through an open field of thorny bushes, and walking uphill was no picnic - I must of looked like a crippled duck as I thrashed up some of the steeper ones. But it was cool. I don’t regret purchasing the skis. And I got to see this ... the sun dropping over Kachemak Bay. So, all in all, a good hobby, I think.

Too warm for biking?

Temperatures here have started to inch just above freezing again - which means slush everywhere. Yesterday I finally convinced Geoff to go winter biking with me, but my "it will be great now that it’s warm" argument backfired. As we dropped off the ridge, we were bombarded with black goo, mostly melted snow mixed with dirt and gravel fragments. Pretty soon I was only able to keep one eye open, then only half open, and my steering wobbled as I furiously wiped mud from the small part of my face still exposed to the elements. When we reached town I was laughing out loud and Geoff was looking at me through his mud-caked bike mask, obviously annoyed. I know what you’re thinking - fenders, Jill, fenders! But acquiring gear doesn’t happen overnight, especially when you live in a town that doesn’t even stock underwear. I still need to buy studded bike tires and biking booties and gloves (all I own now is a pair of mittens.) And I need a tail light and long johns and weatherproof pants, and maybe one of those hats to go over my helmet, and while I’m at it, I remembered that Geo needs a new clutch and some shocks and I just bought cross country ski boots online that arrived as size 42 - 42s! Who even knows what size that is, but they’re entirely too big for me. In conclusion, fenders are on the short end of a long list, so here’s hoping the cold snap comes back.

Everywhere you want to be

Visa Quest ... it's kind of a bluegrass festival started by three guys who used to live in Fairbanks and never lived in Homer; it's 500 people and makeshift bands packed into a tiny hotel lounge and overflowing into the parking lot, foyer and even rooms; it's a congregation of old-timey musicians from Alaska and California and Pennsylvania and West Virgina who meet in Girdwood for no discernable reason and take a beer-driven bus trip all the way to Homer in November just because someone, somewhere, a decade ago or more, thought it sounded like a good idea. In short, Visa Quest is a Homer tradition.

As dancers herded the non-dancers into a neck-to-neck ring at the back of the room, I executed feeble attempts to get back to the stage so I could take photographs for the newspaper. People flailed everywhere and it was enough to make me nostalgic for the sweaty punk show mosh pits I used to swim laps in as a teenager. I must have looked pretty official with a giant Nikon around my neck, because people kept worming through the crowd to ask me questions.

One guy from Talkeetna: "What the hell is this?"

Me: "Bluegrass concert!" (duh)

Talkeetna man: "I've never been to Homer before. I'm just here to visit a friend. You guys sure know how to party here!"

Me: "Oh, this dosen't happen every weekend. It's sort of an annual event."

Talkeetna man, looking around with a blank smile: "So what the hell is this?"

And so on. It was fun, though. Geoff and I danced even though I was wearing two cameras and way too many layers for a room where temperatures easily climbed into the 90s (and I'm from Utah. I know how that feels.) This time next year? Count me in.

Breaking trail

Today Geoff and I went on a backyard expedition of the rolling woods behind our house. And when I say backyard expedition, I mean we literally strapped on some snowshoes, tramped through our backyard and spent three hours traversing the moose tracks and ravines that weave through a veritable wilderness. Geoff has dreams of forming our own personal network of trails where we can cross-country ski, snowboard and hike all winter long; but, man, breaking trail is tough work. While bounding down a steep hillside toward Bridge Creek, I started sliding out of control. I instinctively turned my toes together right before I hit a large root, which sent me flying forward - knees, hands and even face into the snow. The only worse for wear I sustained was a slightly twisted ankle; and only later did I discover that the plastic protectors were still covering my back crampons (I recently bought these snowshoes on eBay and this was their virgin trek). So it was my fault, after all.

While I’m on the subject of entertaining embarrassments, I photographed this cute little northern hawk owl wearing a feathered beret. A woman from a bird rehabilitation center in Anchorage broughtit down for a new exhibit at the Pratt Museum. This bird was the star of a children’s program I attended this morning. The program was predictable enough - squirming kids, loud questions and lots of facts, including the woman’s continued insistence that this bird “is a wild animal. It’s not a pet.” Which is true, I’m sure; poor thing can’t help that it broke it's wing and can't survive in the woods anymore. But if you can put a hat on an owl ... has the line between wild and fashionable been irrevocably crossed? Or could this owl be both? Or neither? It is kind of an ugly hat.

Beautiful day for bikin'

"Wake up. It's a beautiful day for biking." During my cross-country bike trip this phrase became a euphonism for "Wake up. It's 35 degrees outside, we're in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio, and we have 50 miles of headwind to burn through before we reach the other side of Nowhere, Ohio, so get your lazy butt out of the tent."

However, today reminded me that this phrase can still be said without sarcasm; even in Alaska, in November. I went for a two-hour ride along the ridge above town. There were a couple new inches of powder on the road and I had to earn every pedal stroke - but it's no worse than thick mud. The new snow clung to needles and bare branches, giving the landscape a rich contrast that comes when color is removed. Near the reservoir I met a pack of cross-country skiers on the road. We nodded in appreciation of each other and moved on, crushing through grains of snow as they sparkled in the afternoon sun.

Homer in Homer

This is a painting by local artist Leslie Klaar, who I interviewed today. She had a contagious enthusiasm that you don’t find much, even in artists. We talked for more than an hour about her life story, and I have to whittle it down to a 700-word profile. Sigh. But she showed me this painting that sparked a little de-ja-vu tingle when I first saw it. My camera flash pretty much washed it out, but it’s a painting of the Sterling Highway right before it drops into town. You can see the Spit snaking out into Kachemak Bay in the background. I liked it because this is exactly what I saw when I first turned this corner on Sept. 11. It was like looking at a reflection of my own memory … an abstract illustration of what I was feeling at the time. I don’t know. It’s one of those weird art things you can’t explain.

I’ve interviewed a lot of people since I came to town, and Leslie was more polite than most when I introduced myself … a hearty handshake and nothing more said about my name. Most often I get “Homer. You’re name is Homer? No! Really?” (Stifled snickers).

A few say, “Are you related to the founder?,” which is dumb. I’ve only lived here two months and even I know that the town was named after Homer Pennock, a gold prospector who I guess liked his first name better.

I was starting to feel like the only Homer in Homer until my co-worker met a middle-school-aged kid named Homer Olsen, while attending a shark dissection lab on a Saturday … voluntarily, I might add. “Is he from here?” I asked. “I think so,” my co-worker said. He’s probably a great kid, but man, what a cruel fate. I feel for you, Homer.

I like ... art

This is a picture I took on Saturday at Dramaslam. It was a strange event to say the least – 35 locals got together Friday night and wrote, rehearsed and performed six short plays in the space of 24 hours. Geoff and I arrived at the Beluga Lake Lodge expecting a garbled mess of bad writing and flubbed lines performed for an audience of maybe three. What we found was a beyond-capacity crowd of at least 200, and six plays that were - well – real plays. Witty, well acted plays complete with props, lighting and coherent direction. I was beyond surprised, but I guess my expectations still reside in Idaho Falls, where the only well-publicized art event in the 10 months I lived there was a craft fair. If there’s one thing that unites Homerites, it’s that they love their art … and their halibut.

I wrote a review of sorts about Dramaslam – here’s the link to that and other ART-icles of mine. I feel the need to apologize for the 1994-era layout of the Tribune arts page and the fact that it doesn’t link to anything. It’s not my fault! The Web page was designed long before I started working at the Tribune, and probably will remain the same long after I’m gone. With my extremely limited HTML knowledge and general focus elsewhere, it’s a battle I’ll probably never fight. I’m copy-and-paste girl, I am.

Speaking of embarrassing copy, I finally read through one of my articles today (probably the first I’ve read post-publication) and found a number of typos and other errors. As a former copy editor, this should be the height of shame for me. I should report myself to the Testy Copy Editors Web group (extremely funny site if you’re an anal retentive word cop). But will this prompt me to read my own articles before publication? Probably not. I have an debilitating mental block when it comes to self-editing. There’s nothing that makes me sick of myself faster than reading my own writing. So why keep a Weblog? Good question. I’ll go ride my bike trainer and think about it.

10,000-year increments

The best thing about a late sunrise is being awake to see it. Of course, it's coming late enough now that I'm often at work before any hint of dawn graces the horizon. I find myself going in to the office earlier and earlier, in hopes of catching the last rays of daylight before the sunset. No matter how sunny it is, though, it's hard to coax myself outside when the temperatures hover around 10 degrees. And I think, "someday, someday I'll be a real Alaskan and I will persevere no matter what." I said this phrase to myself when I ran outside at 6:30 a.m. today to start my car. I like to tell myself that when the winter gets to the point where my 1996 Geo Prism (2WD and 140,000 miles) is stopped dead by deep snow or cold, I'll just hop on my mountain bike and ride the five steep downhill miles to work. But today, as I pried the wipers from Geo's windshield and then tried to curl my nearly frozen fingers around the steering wheel, I wondered if I actually have it in me. Still five more weeks until solstice - I guess I'm going to find out, either way.

Homer bound

This is Giant Iron Pterodactyl Man; I think of him as GITMo. He guards the trailhead to Homestead, an amazingly scenic cross-country trail system that begins just a half-mile from my house. I walked by this thing at least five times before I first noticed it. Is that a testament to GITMo’s flawless integration into his environment, or a telling symptom of too much time in Homer? I suspect it might be the latter. Alaska attracts some strange people; strange people build strange things. It doesn’t take long before the topless mermaid statues and 10-foot burning baskets blend in like Starbucks on a Seattle boulevard.

I’ve been thinking lately about how different this place is from the place I grew up. It’s not just GITMo and the mermaid. It’s not just the art patrons showing up at a $75-a- ticket gala in evening gowns and rubber boots, or the environmental art that appears on a nearly daily basis somewhere along the Spit. It’s not what Homer is ... but what it refuses to be.

I come from the perspective of another lost soul from Everytown, U.S.A., growing up in a sea of suburban housing peppered with strip malls and parking lots. And now I live in a seaside community in rural Alaska, in a town that has been in a three-year fight to keep Fred Meyer away. We have exactly two chain stores - Safeway and McDonalds, if you don’t count an Arby’s in a gas station - in a retail community of more than 5,000 people. And, if I’m not mistaken, those stores came in fighting for their spot, too. And part of me believes this is great. That this is the way America actually used to be - locals dominating the local market. Buy Alaska! Feed your neighbor! It’s the American Dream. But a large part of me is nostalgic for the Kmarts and single-tract housing of my youth. Sometimes, it’s not always about what you love, but about what you know.

Transitions

My friend Monika in Ann Arbor, Mich., sent me this picture today. She took this photo of me and Geoff in late August in the Salt River Range of western Wyoming. Several of us had converged from our various corners of the country (me, Idaho; Geoff, Alaska; Monika, New York; and Chris, Utah) in this remote national forest along the Grays River to camp, hike and reminise about life before dispersal.

I enjoyed seeing the photo because I figure it was taken about two days before I found out I had a job offer in Homer, Alaska. At the time I was still heavily conflicted about the prospect of moving to Alaska. It was a vague plan Geoff and I had for a while. But after he left in the early summer I grew more comfortable with my life in Idaho, and more leary of the unknown north. Employment was scarce, distances extreme and, if I suddenly found myself single, as my ex-boss in Idaho put it, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

After the trip ended, Monika made her move from New York to Michigan; Chris took a different job in Utah; and Geoff set down the final ultimatum - he was going back to Alaska, with our without me. That same day, the day this camping trip ended, I got the e-mail from my current employer - a job offer.

"So how do you feel about living in a town called Homer?" the e-mail began.

And my first thought was - fine, really.

Two weeks later, I returned from my last spin class, stuck my last midnight shift at the copy desk, and hit Interstate 15. I had been so conflicted, but somehow this transition fell so perfectly into place that it was like merging onto a winding interchange only to look over at the end and find you're still parallel with the highway. Something like that ... but I think, now that I look at this photo, maybe I knew that all along.

Latitude 59

This is my requisite “Northern Exposure” shot - moose in the front yard. I took it this morning on my two-mile (OK, quarter-mile) hike to get the mail. Now all I need is a bear chomping on some salmon, a bright green streak of aurora borealis and someone in a bikini standing next to a snowman - and I’ll have completed the circle of Alaska cliches.

Speaking of cliches, being a “Cheechako” (that’s these Alaska-types’ term for people like me), I’ve spent a fair amount of time explaining some of the more popular Alaska cliches to the people “Outside” (that’s these Alaska-types’ term for all y’all.) And because some (you know who you are, Grandpa) keep bringing up the same myths every time I speak to them, I thought I’d try to debunk a few right now.

1. It’s not dark 24 hours a day here. Not on Dec. 21, not even in Fairbanks. Because Alaska is a very large place stretched across a very round part of the earth (well - aren’t they all), there’s a lot of latitude to cover. Yes, parts of Alaska are dark for weeks on end. Not too many people live in those parts. Down here in Homer, our shortest day is about five hours long. However, in the dead of winter, the sun is never very high on the horizon.

2. Alaska is not universally frigid. Sure, frigid is a relative term (my co-workers from Fairbanks think Homer is downright balmy.) Alaska is just “colder.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

3. Alaska is NOT a liberal state. For some reason people think because there’s trees and glaciers here, Alaska must be a state full of hippies. Not so. Alaskans are more adamant about privatization, public land capitalization and state rights than any place I’ve ever lived, and I’ve lived in Texas.

4. Most Alaskans do not drive dog teams to work, shoot grizzly bears for dinner or squat over streams all day panning for gold. They live normal, predictable, semi-urban lives just like everyone else. I know this one should seem obvious, but I spent a lot of my youth explaining to non-Utahns that Mormons don’t have horns.

5. Alaskans do not hibernate. Well, most don’t. My mom has been particularly worried about the fact that I don’t have television, and I’ve spoken to others who’ve asked me “what the heck” am I going to do all winter (you know who you are, Grandpa). The answer is, same thing you are - go to work, read books, waste time on the computer (like now), go to movies and concerts, hike (with snowshoes or cross-country skis) and ride my bike. Speaking of ... it just hit 20 degrees! I think I’ll go right now. (And for those who keep reading, um, disregard yesterday’s first paragraph.)

November recreation

I'm just thawing my face after a brisk (to say the least) 25-mile bike ride. Every time I go riding I think "this is the last one of the season." On Tuesday I skidded out on a patch of black ice and hit the pavement for crying out loud. Today I rode down the ridge, into town and out to the end of the spit through a fierce west wind. I was getting sprayed by surf from the other side of the road. When I got home my toes were numb and my outdoor thermometer read 12.8 degrees. I think this may be my last ride of the season.

Everyone in town says it's unseasonably cold. The pictures I posted today are from our trip to Crescent Lake last weekend. Driving there was downright brutal. We stopped at a gas station shortly after sunrise (about 9:30 a.m., as this was still one day before the clocks set back) to get some coffee. The thermometer on the door registered vaguely in the single digits and every branch,
every blade of grass along the highway was coated in thick frost. I was anticipating a painful death by frostbite, but once we got out of the car and hoisted our backpacks, the whitewashed landscape seemed beautiful and benign.

We hiked in about seven miles to a little cabin on the lake. We spent the first couple of hours there gathering wood in an area picked pretty clean – a lot of hauling and cutting with a small saw, but at least the effort kept us warm for a while. We stoked our small stove and set out in a rowboat on the lake – still not frozen over, but just barely. In the space of 40 minutes we caught a couple of big grayling. But because we couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning them in the ice water, we threw them back and had burritos for dinner.

When we returned the next day there was a fresh half-inch of snow that had been wiped nearly clean from Geoff’s car. On closer inspection we saw distinct paw prints in the mud caked to the side and the roof was dented in. Footprints in the parking lot indicated that a fairly large black bear – probably in the 200 to 400-pound range – plopped itself right on top of Geoff’s little Civic while we were gone. It’s a wonder nothing caved in. I remember that this kind of bear behavior is pretty common at the Mt. Whitney trailhead in California. There, the black bears will smash in your rear windshield if they see so much as a plastic bag in the back seat. Then, when you get back from your hike, you have no food, a broken window, and a $100 fine from the forest service for tempting the bears. I think, in Alaska, the bears are still the ones who get in trouble.

Alaska, again

So this is my new online journal about moving to Homer, Alaska — a place where it snows in October, where moose traipse through my backyard, and where everyone can spell my last name but if you can’t spell “Xtratuf,” well, so help you God.

This is kind of the obligatory first entry where I have to explain to people who I’ve really lost touch with that I live in Alaska. I lived for a while in Idaho Falls, Idaho – home of potatoes and the self-proclaimed “northern” Mormons, and life was good. But after a brutal hot summer and several months of distant coercion by Geoff, I somehow was talked into moving to Alaska, home of grizzly bears and the self-proclaimed “northern” Libertarians. And – life’s still good. I guess it’s possible to be happy anywhere – just as long as those studded mountain bike tires and stack of DVDs arrive soon.

So, now a little about what we’ve been doing for the past couple of months. We arrived in town Sept. 11, and by the next day found a cabin loft on the ridge above town. We have two acres, an early-season snow base and our closest neighbor is a horse. We’ve spent the past few weeks filling the place with secondhand stuff and furniture Geoff builds with lumber he scavenges at the dump. He found a job working construction with some quintessential Alaskans – the Xtratuf-wearing kind. I work at a small-town rag called the Homer Tribune, where I’m the arts and entertainment reporter, production editor, and somehow the Webmaster (which is really funny, because I have such an incurable case of ADD when it comes to technology.)

On weekends we do Alaska stuff like go sea kayaking in the freezing rain and backpacking to a cabin in the snow so we can chop wood, catch grayling and to return to discover that a bear has walked all over he top of Geoff’s car. The usual things, you know. So, anyway, I plan to post to this blog regularly in lieu of the mass e-mails I’ve developed the bad habit of sending. I'm also going to continue posting pictures. So keep in touch and post comments. I’d love to hear from people.