[Note: written in mid-October. Left unposted because it rambled off without saying anything worthwhile. Until it was put in perspective.]
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Farewell, Agua Canyon; farewell, Grand Staircase. One last drive up to the Aquarius Plateau, aspen blazing in full autumnal glory; one final loop of Fairyland, hoodoos standing tall and misshapen as they were the first hundred-odd times I hiked that trail. Still a few more sunrises to soak in at Sunrise Point, still a few more sunsets at Sunset, then I'm off. Leaving this place.
I still don't know what to make of it. I still don't know if I ever really gave it a chance.
It's such a beautiful place, full of the rich colors and unique scenery that are required for any national park to be a national park. Salmon-pink stone, forest-green pines, October sky an extra deep blue. Expansive views embracing distant mesas and asthenosphere-top clouds, intimate trails weaving down between narrow rock walls and around thousands of odd, lumpy pinnacles. Elk bugling in autumn, peregrines screaming in summer, ravens laughing all year round. It should be everything I could ever hope for. 21,000 acres of Recommended Wilderness, just out my front door, with millions more acres of canyon- and cliff-filled public lands beyond that.
I have a puppy and a truck. A cozy cabin. A job I very much enjoy. Friends and neighbors, a hundred strangers a day who smile and say hello, delighted to be here.
But I'm leaving. Again. Leaving, always leaving.
Push-pull migration factors.
Pull: I've always said that I want to live in Alaska. (By that, I think I meant, you know, Ketchikan or Seward. Glennallen, maybe, but that's getting pretty far out there.) Pull: I've been dreaming of the Arctic for the past four years. (Granted, some of those dreams were rockfall- and river-filled nightmares, but dreams nonetheless.) Pull: A permanent job, one that I'm thoroughly excited for and hope to do well at. Pull: Alaska!!! Did I mention Alaska!
Push: This is not my place.
Maybe it was never going to be my place. Maybe I was meant to just be here for a while, feel grateful to be free and happy back out West, relieved to have my life on the track it was meant to be on, then continue onward, leave. Well, good, that's what's bearing out.
But, nagging at the back of my mind is the possibility that maybe it could have been my place, maybe it should have been my place, maybe I failed it. It took time and perspective for me to appreciate the Adirondacks, it took time and perspective for me to fall in love with Black Canyon. Geographers still say, it takes time to develop an attachment to a place.
I'm not missing the time-in-place here; the perspective is what's off.
Or maybe it failed me.
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I need to begin writing again. For a year, I've had an essay in me, waiting to be put into words. It's this place -- the story of this landscape, the factors and forces that shaped it, beginning with a lake/river and delta system through to lithification, burial, uplift, weathering, erosion.
Erosion, it's mostly the story of erosion.
How something as solid as rock is gradually broken apart and eaten away, leaving behind these weird and improbable fins, windows, arches, and hoodoos. And how the erosion and brokenness somehow becomes a thing of beauty.
Then, this unwritten ghost of an essay is also a story about my experience in this place, the factors and forces that shaped it. It too is a story of erosion. How hope and happiness can be broken apart and eaten away, not by gravity, water, or ice, but by interpersonal forces -- miscommunication, misunderstanding, selfishness. Cruelty. Whatever's left is broken and misshapen, but impressive in its misshapenness, both delicate and unbelievably strong, how can it possibly still be standing?
The words aren't quite there yet, though. There are more metaphors yet to be found, more parallels to be drawn. Hard, capping dolomite vs weak, melty mudstone. Slow, unseen ice wedges vs. dramatic bursts of rain. Internal vs. external factors. Sentience vs. non. I'm not ready. In part, because I'm still here. I have to leave before I can write. It's time to leave.
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Puppy and I are packing the truck. (Well, I'm getting ready to pack the truck; puppy is helpfully gnawing on boxes and pulling things back out of bags). The drive north should be an adventure in its own right. (Ferry! We're taking the ferry up the coast of Southeast AK!) And -- puppy doesn't know this yet, but... -- we're going all in, leasing a little dry cabin in the forest outside of Fairbanks. (I know, I know, I'll regret this when it's 2 a.m. and -40 degrees and I have to pee.)
For now, I'm rereading Two in the Far North, Alaska Wilderness, and Arctic Dreams. I'm excited, a touch trepidatious. “What does it mean to grow rich? ... Is it to retain a capacity for awe and astonishment in our lives, to continue to hunger after what is genuine and worthy? Is it to live at moral peace with the universe?” -- Barry Lopez.
I don't know. I really hope so.
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It isn't just puppy and I, though. I have a partner in this mad dream/adventure, first for the drive, then, hopefully, at our little cabin in the forest come spring. That whole story takes much longer to explain -- maybe there's another book in me? -- but suffice to say: I'm happy.
Haven't I learned anything from Bryce? Shouldn't I be wary, guarded? Protect what's left of these arches and hoodoos? Maybe.
Probably.
Definitely.
Yes.
But this feels right for now. All of this feels right. Terrifyingly, exhilaratingly, impossibly right. Right?
Farewell, Bryce, you've been beautiful. Enlightening. Something to that effect.
I'm leaving stronger, lighter, as improbable as it may seem.
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