Cruisin The Universe

So I had one of the more stunning days of my life on my day off. A friend and I caught a ride with two other friends who were driving up to Denali National Park on Wednesday at 4 am. We got there at 6:15 and they dropped us off, then continued 85 miles, 6 hours, and $50 per person on a shuttle to the innermost park of the park where the iconic "Wonder Lake" sits at the base of the mountain and a campsite costs something like $35 per person per night. Sounds like the quintessence of camping and they two are lovers so it sounds truly beautiful. (Click on the title of this entry to see a picture of Wonder Lake.

Meanwhile, Kreis and I went to the other Princess lodge and passed out for 4 hours on couches then woke up to a ride up to Healy with his friend Alyssa from Orlando. The next 24 hours were hands down the best since I got to Alaska and some of the best of my life. Healy is 10 miles north of the main entrance to Denali National and a little town of locals, tourists, and eccentrics. Most houses are cabins and they're mostly as far from each other as can be. It's also the town only a few miles south from the entrance to the Stampede Trail where Chris McCandless died in a bus. I was 20 miles as the crow flies away from that very famous bus, in fact.

Alyssa is a yoga instructor, raw food dieter, open minder and general groove meister. She's interested in everything and though she doesn't yet seem to know much about anything, she's got the spirit and the drive and the ability to ask questions to start learning. She took us to her little 15 foot by 10 foot cabin that consisted of a single room with two lofts for sleeping and pouring water in a bucket and letting gravity turn it into sinkwater below. We met her roommate Julia who is moving to (you guessed it) Nederland, Colorado this fall, and then we played djembe drums and a steel drum and we all got fly in our silence while we ate cherries and contemplated how big and beautiful the world around us was. How perfect Alaska is and how we could all imagine settling here for good. Apparently this is what happens to everybody who experiences the state from without the corporate "concentration camps."

Soon we went to see about a man who would teach us to build a teepee but because we couldn't find him, we went swimming in a lake at the base of the Alaskan Range because it was far too hot to be walking about. We swam across the lake then lounged and did yoga on a dock. When a torrential downpour threatened in the sky and I was talking to my dad on the phone about his meetings with senators and congressmen in Washington that day, I hung up the phone, jumped in a van and just made it back to the cabin where we sat on the porch as sheetsd and buckets of water fell 6 inches beyond our knees and we played more drums. Then we cooked a delicious halibut dinner (stunning after cafeteria food for 4 weeks that has probably taken 2 or 3 years off my life), and passed out for a bit to the sound of rain.

Then Steve came over and told us about sherpas in Nepal and being a park ranger in Denali and we all went rock climbing in the park in the 11 pm twilight. While others clomb, Julia and I went to get beer and ended up at a photography opening and I met dozens of people all in a moment and got contact information for Homer fishermen, and assurances that I was going to the grooviest place in the state. I also met a kid from Broomfield who said Homer was a lot like Ned. We drank wine then went back to the climbers with beer but soon another massive rainfall came so we went to a locals only pub 30 miles from the nearest tourist, which was packed and danced ourselves sideways.

Kreis saw a guy who looked interesting and said, "Hey." But the guy was busy and blew him off. 3 minutes later he came up to Kreis and said, "Hey, did you say hey earlier? I'm so sorry I was busy, but...hey. How's it going?" Kreis was delighted and we decided that's one of the things that makes Alaska so Alaska: The pace of life leaves everyone time for everyone and there isn't nearly the discrimination of the rest of the world. So far from any maddening crowds, you have time to warm up to everyone and no one feels like they need to uphold anything. YOu just chat and groove and time moves by as it chooses but mostly you don't notice.

That night we rode two shuttles to get back but the second one was driven by Shayne, who swam with us earlier so he blew off his route and took us to our door. He had a tattoo of a tree and the word Create beneath it. On his chest was a tattoo in Arabic that I could read (surprisingly enough) and it said Balance.

In the morning, Kreis and I walked back to the highway and caught a ride with a Moldovan kid back to the lodges and got a free shuttle ride back to the Princess lodge with the inter-lodge connection service Princess runs. I was at work an hour later, buzzing.

And here I sit, less than 3 hours from the start of my last shift. When it's over, they might kick me off property because I quit, or they might give me until the morning. I would like it to be the latter, but I don't trust the humanity of those above me here, so I wont count on anything. Tomorrow I will go to Talkeetna (the town Northern Exposure was based off) for a few days, then back to Anchorage, and onward to Homer.

I realized something: Monday will be the first day of my entire life in which I didn't have a next step already lined up. Near the end of high school, I knew what college I was going to and when I would start. Near the end of college, I knew when my first days of work up here would be. Starting tomorrow, I have no idea what the future holds. None whatsoever. I know I'll get to Hawaii to see my brother sooner or later. I know I'll be in Ireland some time next spring. But from here on to (hopefully) the rest of my life, there will no longer be deadlines, no longer be clips of time in which certain forms of living must take place. It's the beginning of the free chapter of my life. The beginning of everything. To follow the heart is not such a blind faith, I imagine.

Also, Carlee approved of my most recent draft of Sectual Salvation, so it seems I might finally be maturing as a fiction writer and getting to a place where I can start submitting my work places. Who knows.

All my love,
Theo