Mt. Rainier
Half Dome in Yosemite
You can't even see it, but the Hollywood sign is on the hill
It was a pretty dope plane ride back to Texas from Seattle if you ask me. There're just some certain things I love about flights. Like when you leave some shitty weather like Wrangell Alaska for somewhere you know there'll be blue skies and big fluffy clouds. The other thing I absolutely love is looking down at a place from the sky, being able to identify it, and saying 'I've been there'. Just like what happened with half dome here, but when it really got to be was when we were coming into LAX. I was looking out at the 101 and the 1 (highways) coming out of the massive tumor of LA roads and remembering almost exactly one year ago when I was hitching those very roads to get up to Alaska. It was like I was looking down and could remember the intersections I'd stood at with the dry heat and the sun beating down on me. And the specific memories of the people who'd picked me up at those spots were like the little hints of the ocean that'd float across the dry dirt to me every once in a while. It just made me happy remembering that. And if I can be so happy with memories like that at this age I think I gotta be doing something right. I liked it was all, I liked seeing those and being taken back to those special memories.
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I like to think that somewhere out there in the entirety of this big round world is the one best spot to stand or sit and look up into the sky to see the stars. There has just gotta' be one spot out there, one ultimate spot, that can't be beat. The very best. Some pink granite rock on an island in the middle of the Caribbean, a fallen tree trunk in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, a frozen lake in Siberia. One place where all the angles are just right and there're only angels whispering in my ears. A place that when I look up into space at those twinkling beauties nothing shy of launching myself out of this atmosphere would reveal any more stars to my thirsty eyes than the ones I'm currently looking at. I want to be there, I want to stand in that spot. I want that spot to influence me in ways I never believed possible. I want to go search and search and search and know I did everything I could to hold their lights inside me, I want to live in the stars.
There're some places where the stars are, somehow, more beautiful. I remember the first time I ever even really saw the stars. It was in Colorado, outside the back of the condos my friends family had rented out. I was lucky enough to be the best friend invited to tag along on the vacation. I don't know why I was out back of our room that night, but somehow I was. Maybe I was playing in the snow, and, then, before I knew it, I was standing knee deep in snow with my eyes glued to the night sky. I'd never seen stars like that before. I'd grown up outside the city and I'd thought I'd seen stars all my life, but all my life I'd been wrong. Oh my god I'd been wrong. This was jaw dropping, my mind was blown. It was almost too much for me to handle. Think about it this way, I'd just realized that I had been fooled my entire life. I thought I'd known what the stars were like, but I really hadn't. I'd been lied to every time someone'd have me look up at the 'stars' in the night sky just North of Austin Texas. Those stars back home were nothing like the stars I saw in Colorado that frigid night. And those stars in Colorado that night could be scoffed at if you've seen Alaska stars.
Maybe it's Alaska stars, maybe it's just boat stars, or maybe it's the combination of the two, but, regardless, when I'm on the boat in Alaska and I look up through the cold night air into that abyss, I swear, on a clear night it's more white than black. The stars in Alaska blot out the rest of the universe. Looking up at that type of night sky is enough to make me forget where my feet are, and I lose my head in the lightness. I want nothing, nothing, more than to join them in the pitch. Because I hear them calling to me, and maybe, just maybe, one day I will answer.
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"Harry, wake
up."
There're probably a
million things that could run through my head at this moment, but all I think
is 'it's fucking cold outside'. I just got off my driving shift, it couldn't even
have been an hour ago that I left the wheel, making it maybe 2 am. And now Amber's
voice is slipping in through the crack she's made in my door. Weather must've
kicked up and we're anchoring in some shallows somewhere or tying up to a
rickety dock in one of the small fishing villages tucked inside the rocky
coastline we've been running along.
"Yeah?" I
answer, already putting a list together in my head of how this is going to
work. First, I'll have to fling my blankets off, then, roll out of bed, pull on
a thermal shirt, socks then overalls then boots, red jacket, gray jacket, untrap
my hair from between my collar and the back of my neck because it itches, and
then rain gear as I step out of the snakepit.
"It's the moon,
you gotta come see the moon Harry." She almost whispers, too sweet to really want to wake me up.
The moon? Why would
I need to see the moon. I know it's been awfully full the past few nights, but
Amber wouldn't wake me up to see a full moon. I'm at a loss. I don't know what
it could be so I hesitantly tell her "Okay..? I'll be up in a sec."
"Take your time
and get dressed, it's not going anywhere." Then there's darkness inside
the steady humming of the mains as she closes the door to the snake pit. Well, alright then. I
follow the plan, but at a more relaxed pace than previously planned. Taking the
time to insure I don't put anything on backwards or inside out, which happens often when I'm getting dressed in a hurry. So I finish getting my jackets and boots, peer outside to check if it's raining, it's not, and squeeze up the small ladder that puts you at the bottom of the short stairs to the wheelhouse. I know Amber and Hans can hear me coming through the door because every time you open it the sound of the engines rumbling spills out through the tiny doorway. I poke my head up into the wheelhouse and pose the question.
"What's up?"
"There is a lunar eclipse happening Harry!"
"REALLY?!?!"
I was stoked because it sounded bad ass, and it was indeed. It's not like I had on my to do list for Alaska: See the lunar eclipse because I had no idea it was going to be happening, but getting to see the full lunar eclipse by chance was incredible. It was just so gorgeous up there in the sky. We'd been seeing the full moon for nights upon nights and now to see it overwhelmed by shadow. It looked like the world was ending almost. It really did, and the sharp cold night only served to enhance our view. I couldn't believe how lucky we were to see this considering most every other night'd been overcast with dark drizzly clouds. Sometimes you've just got to count on luck for things though.
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I wanted to see the northern lights so badly this season I think I scared them away. Seriously though, you know how like when it's raining and you put your rain jacket on it stops raining immediately? I think I had that effect on the north by starring skyward every night. In the end I did catch them slipping in and out of a cloudy night in Wrangell. They weren't fierce, but subtle, graceful. It was nice, not what I wanted, but what I needed. I left Alaska with no qualms and I'm looking forward to the summer Salmon season with Amber :)
Be happy y'all,
Beacon
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I wanted to see the northern lights so badly this season I think I scared them away. Seriously though, you know how like when it's raining and you put your rain jacket on it stops raining immediately? I think I had that effect on the north by starring skyward every night. In the end I did catch them slipping in and out of a cloudy night in Wrangell. They weren't fierce, but subtle, graceful. It was nice, not what I wanted, but what I needed. I left Alaska with no qualms and I'm looking forward to the summer Salmon season with Amber :)
Be happy y'all,
Beacon
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