The Sweet Heart of Summer

If its never too late to start early and time is relative then I'm right in the groove.

These months have been nothing short of large, filled with a thousand-thousand fits and starts. A late spring in May and the gang-buster heat of June brings out the flying creatures, the buzzing and biting hordes, great billowing drifts of fluff and green, green, green in every direction. Its the bio-storm of Alaska in summer, (a perfect term, attributed to J.B.)  I've just got to be out in it. Can't not.

After decades of practical-use experiments 'in the field', my drug of choice to remain calm amidst the hordes is a light lacquer of deet selectively applied to the wee remaining exposed surfaces, wrists and backs of hands, (if its too blooming hot to wear wooly cuffs and gloves beneath two Ivy League button downs), and gingerly wiped onto temples and forehead, (I may never attain wisdom, damn!) Its nasty but it works.

I'm now prepared to travel twice daily with the 39 mile crew. We lop, gather and munch our way through the celtic knot of wild, across the high benched eskers  down into nettle covered kames left behind long ago when the glaciers receded.

Red-capped chickadees fledged this week challenging the collected knowledge of the white and orange Richard brothers. Rick and Dick are the boys from Dezadeash. As yearling kitty's they would very much like to expand their hunting skills beyond the small rodent population who abandoned the little house. I like to think the short fuzzy folk moved in with the squirrel. The one who bored his way down through the upstairs wall before R&D arrived. Don't see much of either rodent family these bright days of summer, though we regularly cross paths in the forest.

Those able baby birds noisily follow our procession. They use the dense forest canopy of alder, osier, elderberry and Devil's Club to their advantage, pee-upping along our winding route above the Klehini. We feel like a mini northern jungle populated by a precarious ratio of well fed predators to hungry prey. The river flats and forest supply all the animals of the wilderness the goats and sheep and I feed the dogs and cats.  Its the Ho Chi Minh trail of the Tongass, tended twice daily, complete with the sounds of a helicopter hovering above the mountain just a heartbeat away, though gratefully free from the war torn terror of that architectural marvel .

This summer its twelve hour shift changes up there on the peak. The exploration crew is working hard and furious. At night, as mosquitoes cling from the window screen, I can watch from my bed the glimmering tower as it drills, probing, exploring the mysteries deep within Mother mountain.

Its then I think of the story re-told in Klukwan two springs ago by elder Sally Burattin.

Its the Tlingit legend of the cannibal who chased the people, the cannibal who turns out was human greed pushing the people to consume all, in all directions, taking more than needed forcing them to be wasteful.

The force kept driving them on. Across an arid landscape of grass turning to steppe then tundra. Across rocky peaks that slashed up from vast ice fields. The people fled, chased down into the mountain's crevasses, down into darkness, a giant glacial tube, a cobalt corridor of rushing water, boulders and silt.

They followed the water, often on their bellies crawling, to eventually emerge from an ice cave into a lush river valley. The group, finally able to stop, found the cannibal was no longer among them. One of the young women needed rest and nourishment and the time to deliver a newborn, the first born. To honor the opportunity to begin again and to remember the difficult passage the people called the river the Klehini,  'Mother waters'.

The waters originate high in the Chilkat Pass and are a main tributary of the Chilkat River, home to all five species of Pacific salmon and the largest annual congregation of American Bald Eagles in the world. The Tlingit village of Klukwan, or 'the storage container for salmon', continues to thrive in the heart of the Chilkat.

I'm the watcher on the trail above the Klehini, the crazy granny goat herd beneath Mother Mt. I'm always hoping our human capacity for greed doesn't out distance the heart of this amazing valley. It's never too late to remember and, well, its all relative.

It's February ~ Never Too Late to Start Early

Ho! What a day. The sun brings everything into rich, startling relief.
My sled is loaded with sleeping gear and all the snow-shoe trails reconfigured to allow me to tow. It's Spring Camp, just down river. It's nearly within shouting distance of home on a high point where the Klehini can conspire with Mt. Bigger to sing into my dreams for a few nights. Maybe I'll hear the Great Horned owl as well.

Feel Spring stirring? There's two months before this Fool celebrates her 60th. The time is now.

Reflections on Ground Hog's Day ~ 2013

January was a gentle beginning to a new decade, though last week, the Klehini Valley was visited by intense NW wind.  All my familiar trails were erased, buried beneath sculptural-ly fabulous whiteness. Snow country teaches to value impermanence and the unexpected.

This winter, to mix things up I've perfected the art of tree climbing with snowshoes. Because of unusually low snowfall, there's not enough to cover the tree sized brush that edges the forest and river-flats. Smaller deciduous species, alder, cranberry, rusty menziesia, blueberry, all generally bend over by mid-November creating great habitat for the smaller forest folk and a wonderful upturned basket effect for the snow-pack to build upon. So far, thirty-nine miles up-river from Haines, the snow is powdery and hip deep, but not deep enough to easily travel through the forest.

Tree climbing with snowshoes...I wonder if this activity might fall with-in the definition of sisu, (though gratefully, I doubt it could be marketed.) I discovered sisu from an interesting project shared online, by Dougald Hine. Here's a sample:

Someone has to have asked about sisu before.

‘Perseverance, persistence, resilience…’ The librarian reads off a list of possible translations, but by now I realise that what I am looking for is more than the English meaning of the word. I want to understand what it means to people here in Finland.
‘Years ago, when we didn’t have any electricity and we were into darkness for half of the year, you had to just bite your tongue and do everything that you had to do.’
So sisu was the spirit that got people through the dark times of the northern winter?
‘Yes, I think you could say that. But it gets exaggerated, too. It has become part of this nationalistic story.’

Ketchup

A sweet winter so far.

We had a great visit from Micah, (our oldest of three) and his mate, Jerin. They made the trek to Alaska from NYC in time for Solstice. Both events we honored with due fanfare.  Dec. 21, 2012 unfolded near the heart of our deepest stretch of winter cold; sunny, sub-zero and incredibly gorgeous. Using his production knowledge and newly acquired camera and sound equipment, Micah spent a lot of his time filming the Chilkat and upper Klehini river valleys. Here's a little of what he caught.

Capturing the soundscape

Hannah also rallied north for the holidays.  Her senior year is focused on writing plays, staging and producing events resplendent with masks, puppetry, and spectacle. Off time, back home, she focuses on replenishing the reserve; catching up on reading, family, and being outdoors.

INCOMING!

Godzilla is ALWAYS in the tree!

Middle daughter Merrick, her honey Joe, and their first baby, Yarona Blue stayed south, happily hunkered down, following mama's chemo treatments focusing their energy and undisturbed time on being a new family. We missed them terribly but happy they have a comfortable setting for this oddly awkward first winter.

They're plucky. Can you tell?


A first New Year's Masquerade Ball was held at The Chilkat Center, put on by our radio station, KHNS. Good music by three local bands, the result of endless hours of practice, made dancing on the main stage a gas.

The costumes, refreshments and decor were decadent. Haines knows how to do winter. Here's Hannah and Jerin. You can tell by the swishing going on in the background that everyone, indeed, had a ball.

Da Band  # 1

To the nines!

I've spent January putting in snowshoe trail. There's not quite enough white stuff yet to hike up to my secret haunts even though I'm dancing nightly to encourage the Ice Gods. They're playing tough now that it's 2013.

This week we're seeing dank and drippy. Perhaps they're cooking up something spectacular for Feb-April. Hey, in these radical times, who knows what to expect?

New Stories

This summer melted far faster then that last stretch of snow.

Our newest family member and first grandchild, Yarona Blue, was born September 18, 2012, on Douglas Island to parents Merrick Ann and her sweetheart Joe Jacobson. She's a spirited delight and, like her parents, proving to be an intrepid traveler. In two months of life this little kiddo has covered vast territory, back and forth across Alaska for oncology appointments. It's a big state!

At present, Yarona is keeping her mamma, poppa and grandma on their toes in Bellingham, Wa.  Her momma's undergoing chemo sessions for Hodgkin Lymphoma, (detected a year after her first treatments). Bellingham is a somewhat easier climate. But, gad... it's wet!

Writing, as always is good medicine for the entire clan. This season, it's best approached in a private manner. I'll share, soon, when I return home to Alaska. Until then.

   It's a family!

Shapes of Summer

I've been away from writing and I miss it.

In late May the snowshoes were repaired and put away just as a green grandness unfurled. May and June have been quite cool, in the low 40°'s. Not a gardening summer. The Kluane-Chilkat Bike Race last weekend had calls for snow in the Chilkat Pass, twenty miles beyond our place. I tuck in at night with a cozy sweater and socks.

But, that green explosion. Again I value the intelligence of hooves and horizontal movement through a summer rainforest. We wind through reaches that gently open to the herd as we nip and nibble shoulder width paths so inviting that the rest of the forest dwellers share our route; bear, moose, coyote.

This summer, we consist of four Oberhasli goats; Mom, her two teen does and their impressive older, wether-brother. The three young adults all sport full horns, muscled, agile and beautiful! Two middle-aged ewe sheep join us as well, (we have both browsers and grazers.) Both dogs keep aware of our periphery; Mason, the ancient and wise and his lady, Tupher, the new trail boss/apprentice. Each scout ahead. The tail runners are two white and orange kitten boys from the Hay Ranch at Dezdeash. Life is extremely large for those little fellows and they love it!.

We're a well oiled team, a silent presence. We are the watcher in the woods.

Getting Better, Thanks, And Pass the Soup. Please!

There's absolutely nothing as effective as getting puny to remind me how much I value my health, good diet and outdoor time. Plus, I just don't do puny well.

This winter, I've had the interesting challenge of returning to the classroom as Title 1 Aide at the Klukwan School. Working with the kids who are in sixth grade through Juniors in high school has been great, though they're light years ahead of me in most arenas offering the dual benefit of hope for the future plus daily lessons in humility.

For the students that I work with, I AM able to lend an elbow to elbow focus-tether plus frequent reality checks on the relevancy of what they're studying: "You see, mastery of math and grammar matters now and in the long haul. Just look at how I struggle trying to help you!"

Also, I confess my surprise over how little general knowledge most kiddos have of history and the world in general. Last week I heard: "You mean the Nazi's were real! Not just characters from computer games who turn into zombies once you've killed them?" And: "So, who was Martin Luther King?" "What the heck are civil rights?" "Why do we have Elizabeth Peratovich Day?", what was the Arab Spring?" (translated as "Why should we care?")

The all consuming attitude of "BORING" is the largest challenge, especially as most Jr. High kids work really hard at maintaining that mindset. Here's my take: dullness combined with a lack of exercise effects our health and opens the door for migrating bugs to be shared, (homegrown science labs yearning to be explored.) Plus, it keeps you stupid and generally unattractive to others.

I mandate that each time a kid runs a fever or shows other clear indicators that they're sick, they should be required to stay in bed - IN BED,  (no gadgets allowed). This also requires that someone is home watching over them - as they sleep, read one good book, or two, or three, draw, write letters, make frequent notes in a journal about what they are dreaming and pictures of the progression of their symptoms.

Frequent chicken noodle soup, (with plenty of basil!), is optional, (though it comes highly recommended.) Reading together as a family never, EVER hurts!

Now, back to healing, (damn shared bugs). Blessed are Edith Pearlman and the joy of a savory Garrison Keillor Love Sonnet  or two. Go ahead, read the reviews, while you're at it.


P.S. A special thanks to my Honey Man for firewood and a cookie and to Yevette Graham for sending her private stash of Emergen-C Super Orange. What friends!

I Am Compelled To Dance

(planning ahead)

End Month One 2012

The Blue Room has returned. Drop by.

Gathering White Stuff And Confidence Too

The snow continues to mound here at the Alaska-Canadian border having gathered to the rather impressive depth of 200 + inches and up until today, it's all powder. The willow, scrub maple and alder are heavily buried. Deep holes and treacherous trenches beneath fallen trees are completely filled in. With the temperature beginning to climb towards 30° the snow pack will turn to pristine white cement everywhere, the kind that vanishes somewhere around the first of June. Until then, the going's going to be great.

I've been thinking today about my mother and a very dear friend who died two days ago. The two were similar personalities; strong, resourceful, quasi-adventurous, extremely smart. Both were fine conversationalists who read everything.

Thursa Revenaugh, Mom, learned to create happiness with what she had. If that fell shy she'd make the necessary changes, either in circumstance or attitude, so that life felt right. It didn't take a lot. She fed herself with the simplest things; tap dance shoes at 65, all the doors and windows open wide with Hoagy Carmichael tuned up. She encouraged the Morning Glories to climb above the neighbor's cement wall, the new wall, built higher than the sunset. Every sunrise she'd read, sip her coffee and count the number of humming birds that visited her side of the concrete. Though her keen intelligence clouded with death pending, she chose to celebrate, Valentine's chocolate smeared on her lips and chin. She was a tough, resourceful cookie.

The years shared with Jane were our early parenting years, the seasons we watched our kids becoming people. She and her toddler Seth were an active part of everything we did as a family; birthday adventures, skinny-dipping expeditions, going to the public pool for swimming lessons, ice cream parties at Porcupine Pete's, a whole gold pan full of different flavors and ten spoons. We shared a deep love for reading aloud to our kids and Jane enthusiastically critiqued all of Micah's first manuscripts.
Jane left Alaska long ago and I don't know enough of what came down through the years but she died earlier this week from pneumonia via heavy smoking and chronic depression; soul sickness, the contemporary variety, the kind that seeps into one's deepest holes, filling the lungs, blood and bones then turns to cement. I hope there was some secret delight to see her out, some glad memory, sweet like chocolate.

I'm taking them both snowshoeing with me tomorrow, fond memories combined with the happy tramping of four dogs, (our two and Merrick and Joe's pups, grand-kids with tails).  We're looking for individual snow flakes, winter's four leaf clover. That and a confidence boost over the wall. When we get back, there's a roof or two to shovel. Winter builds confidence just staying out from under.

New Year's ...the night

 

How could she possibly find the energy she once knew when each and every night began and ended the same way? Oh sure, there might be slight variations on the theme but basically the beat went on, week after week.

Tonight was different. She climbed out of bed when she could no longer stand the dullness, put more wood into the stove, made a cup of tea and moved her chair in front of the sliding glass door to watch the moonlight on the mountains and write a bit. Perhaps later she’d go back to bed and catch a memorable dream.

For years she promised herself this kind of respect; to walk away purposefully and with design from a sleepless night. Instead, she suffered the tedium of endless hours; neither asleep nor mentally, or physically engaged enough to be awake.

She tried prayer. She found the rapport with spirits inspiring but rather one sided thereby bound toward emotional and intellectual collapse. Each dearly departed would drift in, one by one, leave a bit of residual doo then mist off again, nothing substantial. Of course, what could she expect? She stood committed that engaging with ephemeral dust was generally better than overly pinging off the inside of her own head.

And now, it was nearly New Years!

New Year's

By Bei Dao

Translated By David Hinton and Yanbing Chen

a child carrying flowers walks toward the new year

a conductor tattooing darkness

listens to the shortest pause

hurry a lion into the cage of music

hurry stone to masquerade as a recluse

moving in parallel nights

who's the visitor? when the days all

tip from nests and fly down roads

the book of failure grows boundless and deep

each and every moment's a shortcut

I follow it through the meaning of the East

returning home, closing death's door

"New Year" by Bei Dao, translated by David Hinton with Yanbing Chen, from LANDSCAPE OVER ZERO, copyright © 1995, 1996 by Zhao Zhenkai, Translation copyright © 1995, 1996 by David Hinton with Yanbing Chen.  New Directions Publishing Corp.

And...

Burning the Old Year

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.  

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,  

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,  

lists of vegetables, partial poems.  

Orange swirling flame of days,  

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,  

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.  

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,  

only the things I didn’t do  

crackle after the blazing dies.

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Burning the Old Year” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted without the permission of the author, though I'd prefer otherwise. Naomi, this is beautiful work...how might I be in touch to compensate you?
...

She thought back to last New Year. That was the final time she attempted to entrance him with her "Feminine Mystic Wiles”, her “Hoo-doo Dance of Love Joy.”  His drowse proved far more intoxicating than aged thighs working classic Fosse rhythm and jive in tight heels, step sliding to a random selection of Internet Radio. Said in a whisper more like a prayer, “Someone, anyone, we need, Really need live radio, a DJ's musical discretion tonight” 

Once again, dust.

The Show Goes On!

The Klukwan School Holiday show IS on for tonight, Monday at 5:30.
With transportation issues haunting class participation and our production, it's been pressed right to the final hour whether we were going to be able to perform. We're there! Kids are ready, treats are baked, excitement (and terror) prevails!

Join us!

Writing/ Loving and Edith Pearlman

I've fallen in love. It's been quite a long time, but this is a serious delight. While reading  Orion Sept/Oct '11,  I was introduced to Edith Pearlman. I spent my entire evening tracing her online and grew more excited with each passage. Can't wait to interlibrary loan Binocular Vision, a recent collection of her short stories and then to make orders through The Babbling Book for New Year 2012 gifts.

In addition to Edith, I'm invigorated by Micah Bochart's recent reworking of his novel,
Companions of the Garden. The diligence required to write is nothing short of devotion. I appreciate their passion, one tasty paragraph after another.

Klukwan School Winter Play 2011

I've been up late, several nights in a row, writing and organizing plans for a holiday-time production with the kids of Klukwan School. We're knitting a sweet tableau of two Tlingit legends, adding some contemporary scenes of Alaskan village youth on a weekend winter hike, and stirring in the bright nuggets from a younger children's classic, Warton's Christmas Eve Adventure by Russell E. Erickson. This little chapter book kept several generations of 'out the highway' kids at Mosquito Lake School entertained around Christmas and delighted the cluster of 39 Mile kids right through two, or so, years ago.
How the stories intersect and become a single telling will require magical realism, puppets and the brilliance of kids. These ingredients we've got. The suspension of disbelief, this time of year, comes somewhat naturally for all of us in the hinterlands.
The largest stumbling block has been getting everyone to school. Some of the students live in town, 21 miles away. With one of the more spectacular Snovembers on history, 11 feet in four weeks, and a bus that's been broken down on either side of Thanksgiving, the kids are hard pressed to have enough in-house classmates to pull off a production. But, we're sure having fun trying. The kids are writing the overlying story and fabricating puppets to tell the interior tales.
So, though I have a terrible reputation for not following up on the stories I share here, I'll make every effort to capture highlights of our progress. I can truthfully say, it's  rich getting back to writing
Here's to holiday fal-da-ral!

Don't Fall In!

We'll call it the late November hole...

Over-easy? Not so.

The screams were unidentifiable but had an effect that could raise old souls

from endless sleep. I rose quickly, pulled on my pants in the near light, and

stumbled out into driving rain and a gale force wind. Tree chicken,

turned banshee, lay crumpled, a flurry of feathers and noise

pinned beneath Red Tail, using his agile body, trying his best to behead her,

put a stop to her piercing war whoops. Up he swooped, distracted, disgruntled and hungry.

My one-eyed warrior-ess heals near the stove.

Hawk will try another day.

A Bootstrap~Kinda Joy

An acrid sweet melancholy drips from the forest this morning, mixing with smoke from my woodstove. Raven is not far off, talking about his relatives and dropping casual reference to mine, as though he has the right to gossip and share the personal news of others. I wonder if he blogs? 

Micah Bochart offers us a teaser film from this summer's puppet show, linked  here. It features Hannah Bochart as vocalist, Melina Shields on squeeze, Tim Hawkin on drums and Nicholas on guitar. Sarah Cohen creeps out with The Box. 

Can't wait to see what Micah does with the rest of the footage from the Dream Circus. We'll be seeing him in NYC ten days from now (down the rabbit hole!) 

Lately, I've had the joy of helping with children's 'art explores' at Dalton City's Golden Mouse Art House. Today we are working on creating felt sculpture ~~~ suds, raw wool and untrammeled imagination in excess. I'll bring back images.

Amazed ~ Prior to Ash

“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch

JOOLS ELPHICK - CONTEMPORARY HEAD-DRESSES

For fine art wearable and a fun source of inspiration peek at:
JOOLS ELPHICK - CONTEMPORARY HEAD-DRESSES 2001

Autumn Is Comin On!

And, damp! The kind of damp that produces an algae green surface on everything from trees to decks. The tree sitting porcupines take on a kind of moss colored undertone. Cottonwood and poplar leaves turned a garish yellow this week and all thin places in the cloud cover suggest blue sky, just beyond view.

~~~I'm busy making lady slippers~~~

This pair is called Larkspur and were made for my sister Melody Lamb. They are recycled corduroy, ancient fashion fur from Etsy, and our wool, dyed and felted. The leather is from an old brushed-suede coat. I hope they keep her cozy and laughing.

If you have an interest in mocs or muks let me know. You can leave your contact info in a comment or reach me at rilkemaid@gmail.com