Running on Wonder and Dregs
I like the above poem because January really doesn’t feel like the start of anything for me. In Alaska I’m having a blast in the snow while simultaneously running off dregs; finding great joy in being outside every day and also feeling as delicate as the hoar frost, like the smallest gust of wind could knock me over.
I’m not alone in this; none of us up here have had bright direct light in a while; the angle of the sun won’t rise high enough to give us brain chemicals again until March. We don’t have the brain drugs right now but we have the memory of the brain drugs; we are simply waiting winter out, while simultaneously crying with happiness at the wonder of living in such a magical place. I’m trying to have a sense of humor about all of it because I know that in March our collective will to live will return; the days will be long and bright (but still snowy- how cool!) and everyone will be suddenly, ecstatically hopeful and we’ll all assume the best (instead of the worst) and we’ll be shiny and new again.
For now my heart is a seed, buried deep in the ground, while I take my physical form on wintry adventures- the skate skiing this year has been incredible! Frozen water comes in so many sparkly forms, and is different every day! How fun, to laugh and play outside with my friends, warm in spite of the cold! I love being trapped on this frozen island with so many other wonderful people, who are trapped here too! Alaska is kind of its own thing! It makes us appreciate each other in a way I have not experienced in other places in the US!
I had a fun new years on a spinning ice carousel in a frozen lake that my friends built. I never used to like new years, but in Anchorage it’s become something I look forward to all year. Structures made of ice! And snow! And frost! And bonfires, with fireworks exploding overhead! And this year there was a dance floor on the frozen lake and a DJ, and a sparkly salmon fishco ball.
Learning about winter here as an adult mostly entails copying what my friends do; last winter I bought some insulated Carhart bibs because that’s what other people wear, and even though I was skeptical they’ve ended up being the warmest thing I own. It was 18 degrees F on the ice carousel and I hung out there for four hours and was totally fine!
Also in the last few weeks I finished the edits on this most recent draft of my manuscript, and sent it to my agent. I ate a lot of chocolate, and gluten-free stuffing, and moose stew. I found a canon sure-shot supreme (film point-and-shoot that youtube likes) on ebay for $35, so now I have a more portable film camera that will take somewhat shittier photos (but with a flash!). I continue to improve incrementally at downhill skiing at the local ski hill- I even got to ski in fresh powder there one day! The light was flat and the pow was deep and the experience was lowkey psychedelic.
I’m taking an eight-day Wilderness First Responder course this month (it’s a requirement for one of my commercial guiding permits and I think I should just have it besides) and finishing up zoom calls with the beginner backpackers attending my February hiking and writing retreat in Arizona. There’s still spots available in my summer Alaska Brooks Range guided backpacking trips, for hikers who already have some long-distance hiking experience who want to learn to make a route in Caltopo in the arctic, and then hike it! Details and the application are here.
The dark spot in this blissfully tolerable life I’ve built for myself is the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and the disheartening barrage of Zionist propaganda on social media wherein Israel seeks to DARVO itself out of any responsibility.
From wikipedia:
DARVO (an acronym for "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender") is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as sexual offenders may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.[1] Some researchers indicate that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.[2][3][4]
As the acronym suggests, the common steps involved are:
The abuser denies the abuse ever took place
When confronted with evidence, the abuser then attacks the person that was abused (and/or the person's family and/or friends) for attempting to hold the abuser accountable for their actions, and finally
The abuser claims that they are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing the positions of victim and offender.[2][4] It often involves not just playing the victim but also victim blaming.[3]
An especially creepy part of current Zionist propaganda are the incessant claims that anti-zionism = anti-semitism. It absolutely does not, and here’s your (and my) reminder that:
-Most Zionists are Christian
-Christian Zionists believe that all Jews must move back to Israel to bring about Christian endtimes/Jesus’ return (at which point those same Jews must convert or die)
-Zionism is also a political project about land, natural resources, trade routes and having a stronghold in the middle east
-Many Jews are anti-zionist.
@jewitches on instagram has great resources on this, here here and here. Let’s keep reading and talking and learning and discussing this, we owe it to the people of Palestine! Our tax dollars are funding this massacre and that is total bullshit!
That’s all for today, I hope you’re having a nice January so far, or at least a tolerable one with a bit of magic glow around the edges.
-Carrot
Always enjoy your stories. If you ever make it to Kodiak, you’ll have a place to stay. David Odell AT71 PCT72 CDT77