The crunchy granola times of Alaska
I mention Alaska so many times, it has become my anecdotage. Similar to those old mission stories other people have, it seems I can't help but continue to bring it up.
Alaska happened the same time as I was in a grand gesture of "finishing". There was my freshman year of college that was coming to a close, my first relationship had run its course, and all of this coincided with the ending of my 18th year. I was a young college freshman. I had a need to get far far away - I realize now I was running. All the finishing things were different than I expected and I needed to get away from them and get a fresh start. I searched for the most far away place I could go with no negative cost to me. Camps seemed like the best place to get lost and I had interviews at the two far off distant places from home: Alaska and Maine.
After answering a series of questions that included what color I would be (orange) and what animal I would be (all I remember is no, not a monkey), I surprisingly landed the job in Alaska. I was never a girl scout, but I had done a fair bit of camping so I interviewed well, and found myself ending that relationship, packing up my things from University 1, pausing at home for a week and then flying to Alaska with a huge plastic tote wrapped in duct tape. The odd specifics of the job involved sleeping in a canvas platform tent for three months with every other weekend off (2 days of it anyway) and 2 hours dedicated to myself for all the other 12 days of the week I was working. It was rugged, and it was hard work and it was cold, and almost every day for one particular week I remember waking up and leaving the tent only to hit my head hard into an overhanging 2x4. Throughout the week I was emotionally available to and responsible for a group of 8-11 year olds in their creative, physical and intellectual pursuits as well as responsible for their entertainment while they stayed their week at the girls camp.
There are so many things to be said about Alaska. There is the mess hall with the non-denominational prayer prior to every meal. My massive consumption of food to make up for the emotional exhaustion I felt every day. The oddness of not having phones or email and only relying on "snail"-mail. The loss of my voice and subsequent medication to get it back because I'd never talked, explained or sang so much in my life. A small craft water safety certification requiring swimming in a lake with my clothes and shoes within a few yards of trumpeter swans with steam rising off the water. The super intricate activity challenge I created for Harry Potter week. The realization of how different each counselor's backgrounds were and how we didn't know them because we only knew each other's pseudo-names and the personas we had created for that summer. Late night dance parties in the mess hall that seemed criminal and rebellious because we needed an outlet to modern life even though we knew the camp director would come shut us down any minute. The now odd fact that I lived out of a plastic trunk in a platform tent for 3 months and wore 50 cent thrift store jeans as my prized possession with tevas and old soccer jerseys.
Alaska was a hard thing that I did. I assimilated, worked hard, counseled, cried, shrunk, played, grew, and came back with a different perspective about women and girls. I was and became that crunchy granola hippie that belonged in Alaska. I ate halibut and salmon and liked it. I ran around in a T-shirt in 70 degree weather and was happy the sun had come out and that I didn't freeze in my tent the night before. I was in shock the sun never went down in June and afraid of the dark by August. When I finally left Alaska I came home and threw away anything I felt like was confining or restricting, refused to wear make-up and continued to be somewhat outdoorsy-hippie-granola. The influence of Alaska was far-reaching; I source it as the reason I became so involved with Alternative Spring Break. I needed to keep the wild alive in me, even if it was only there for a week at a time. I dreamed of going back and renaming myself as "Echo", because it seemed symbolic (which I'm sure every returning counselor claims as their name). Year after year I got farther away from going back. Year after year I kept what I could but there was so much of life to let in, that I got farther and farther away from who that person was. I barely recognize that girl now. I'm sure she's still in me somewhere, but I'm not sure where all the wild has gone. My guess is that I've just let it grow and have fashioned/pruned it so that it doesn't seem so wild and instead is just a part of who I am without having to prove something.
I had so much to prove in that "finishing" young 18 year-old year.
There are things that will always be a part of me from Alaska. The love of the sound of rain on a canvas tent. A reverence for flamingo pink and fluorescent orange sunsets that would last forever on a lake rippling from the disturbance of a beaver. Gardens and watercoloring. Play. Feeling clean and happy even though I'm covered in dirt. Love for womanhood. Passion for taking care of each other and ourselves. It has come up so many times in this blog, for example, here, and here. Interesting right? My life is cyclical. The things that I learn from what seems like an idiosyncratic event resurface in ways I'd never imagine.
All of this is relevant now, because the current version of me that loves Bodenusa and dresses and skinny jeans just seems highly juxtaposed with Carhartts+alpine sweaters. It's strange to me that that person is someone I no longer recognize in myself, and very few people believe that this was a real experience that I had.
Life.
It's so different than we think it's going to be.
Alaska happened the same time as I was in a grand gesture of "finishing". There was my freshman year of college that was coming to a close, my first relationship had run its course, and all of this coincided with the ending of my 18th year. I was a young college freshman. I had a need to get far far away - I realize now I was running. All the finishing things were different than I expected and I needed to get away from them and get a fresh start. I searched for the most far away place I could go with no negative cost to me. Camps seemed like the best place to get lost and I had interviews at the two far off distant places from home: Alaska and Maine.
 |
| Ogden Canyon. Circa 2002. |
After answering a series of questions that included what color I would be (orange) and what animal I would be (all I remember is no, not a monkey), I surprisingly landed the job in Alaska. I was never a girl scout, but I had done a fair bit of camping so I interviewed well, and found myself ending that relationship, packing up my things from University 1, pausing at home for a week and then flying to Alaska with a huge plastic tote wrapped in duct tape. The odd specifics of the job involved sleeping in a canvas platform tent for three months with every other weekend off (2 days of it anyway) and 2 hours dedicated to myself for all the other 12 days of the week I was working. It was rugged, and it was hard work and it was cold, and almost every day for one particular week I remember waking up and leaving the tent only to hit my head hard into an overhanging 2x4. Throughout the week I was emotionally available to and responsible for a group of 8-11 year olds in their creative, physical and intellectual pursuits as well as responsible for their entertainment while they stayed their week at the girls camp.
There are so many things to be said about Alaska. There is the mess hall with the non-denominational prayer prior to every meal. My massive consumption of food to make up for the emotional exhaustion I felt every day. The oddness of not having phones or email and only relying on "snail"-mail. The loss of my voice and subsequent medication to get it back because I'd never talked, explained or sang so much in my life. A small craft water safety certification requiring swimming in a lake with my clothes and shoes within a few yards of trumpeter swans with steam rising off the water. The super intricate activity challenge I created for Harry Potter week. The realization of how different each counselor's backgrounds were and how we didn't know them because we only knew each other's pseudo-names and the personas we had created for that summer. Late night dance parties in the mess hall that seemed criminal and rebellious because we needed an outlet to modern life even though we knew the camp director would come shut us down any minute. The now odd fact that I lived out of a plastic trunk in a platform tent for 3 months and wore 50 cent thrift store jeans as my prized possession with tevas and old soccer jerseys.
 |
| NOT a girl scout camp. Note those $0.50 jeans. |
Alaska was a hard thing that I did. I assimilated, worked hard, counseled, cried, shrunk, played, grew, and came back with a different perspective about women and girls. I was and became that crunchy granola hippie that belonged in Alaska. I ate halibut and salmon and liked it. I ran around in a T-shirt in 70 degree weather and was happy the sun had come out and that I didn't freeze in my tent the night before. I was in shock the sun never went down in June and afraid of the dark by August. When I finally left Alaska I came home and threw away anything I felt like was confining or restricting, refused to wear make-up and continued to be somewhat outdoorsy-hippie-granola. The influence of Alaska was far-reaching; I source it as the reason I became so involved with Alternative Spring Break. I needed to keep the wild alive in me, even if it was only there for a week at a time. I dreamed of going back and renaming myself as "Echo", because it seemed symbolic (which I'm sure every returning counselor claims as their name). Year after year I got farther away from going back. Year after year I kept what I could but there was so much of life to let in, that I got farther and farther away from who that person was. I barely recognize that girl now. I'm sure she's still in me somewhere, but I'm not sure where all the wild has gone. My guess is that I've just let it grow and have fashioned/pruned it so that it doesn't seem so wild and instead is just a part of who I am without having to prove something.
I had so much to prove in that "finishing" young 18 year-old year.
 |
| Handheld point and shoot camera - not digital. |
There are things that will always be a part of me from Alaska. The love of the sound of rain on a canvas tent. A reverence for flamingo pink and fluorescent orange sunsets that would last forever on a lake rippling from the disturbance of a beaver. Gardens and watercoloring. Play. Feeling clean and happy even though I'm covered in dirt. Love for womanhood. Passion for taking care of each other and ourselves. It has come up so many times in this blog, for example, here, and here. Interesting right? My life is cyclical. The things that I learn from what seems like an idiosyncratic event resurface in ways I'd never imagine.
All of this is relevant now, because the current version of me that loves Bodenusa and dresses and skinny jeans just seems highly juxtaposed with Carhartts+alpine sweaters. It's strange to me that that person is someone I no longer recognize in myself, and very few people believe that this was a real experience that I had.
Life.
It's so different than we think it's going to be.
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