Ode to AK

But first, an ode to Susan.

Lucy met an 80-year-old-lesbian-nomad named Susan on the train from Chicago to Truckee. Since taking the 48 hour train from Chicago to Truckee is a very normal thing that very normal people do, Susan (as you can imagine), was very normal. 

Susan “lives” in Anchorage. “Lives” in quotation marks because Susan actually lives nowhere. But also, she lives everywhere. 

Susan picked us up at the Anchorage airport at midnight. We hopped in her car and headed to her “house” for the night because you’re definitely supposed to go to the homes of strange elderly folk found on the train.

But you know what they say, a free place to stay is better than a not-free place to stay. 

Susan offered us soup at one in the morning. She gave us an in depth presentation of Alaska using her physical map. I don’t think Susan knows about google maps.

She had a glob of butter on her finger. “I don’t know how that got there,” she chuckled.

Her living situation definitely had a roof. Somehow there were a million things in that house, and also nothing at all. But definitely, a roof. 

Susan drove us from Anchorage to Seward the next day. She wasn’t headed that way, she just wanted to go on an adventure & help us out. She told us about all the lives she’s lived while going a steady 10-15 mph under the speed limit. 

We ate peanut butter jelly sandwiches with rosemary olive bread and expired jam? When you’re hungry enough, anything can be delicious. 

Most of her stories are meant to stay in that car. So that’s where they’ll stay for now. 

Susan is Alaska. Eccentric, wild, a true individualist. A bit off. (Kind of like this shitty poem)

She exits every situation by saying “rock on.” 

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether Susan is real or not. Did we make it all up? Is Susan just a concept? 

Am I Susan? 

Bet ya can’t guess which one is Susan

Ok, now: an ode to AK.

(shifting gears)

The Kenai Fjords felt deeply familiar. Not in a bland way, in an absurd way. Reminding me of the innate wildness that exists in the uncontrolled. 

I got to sea kayak everyday with three of my favorite humans on earth. Spencer & Ella are guides at a remote lodge only accessible by a 4 hour boat ride. They live off the grid in a tiny little cluster of cabins that you would never know were there from water. Their extensive knowledge of the land and the animals inhabiting it completely transformed the experience; something I’m endlessly grateful for and in awe of. 

We’d be shooting the shit & cracking up (as we do), but this time we were floating by towering granite peaks and formidable glaciers in the pouring rain. It felt homely & ludicrous in all the right ways. 

Many of the glaciers in Kenai are actively calving. They hold this very specific, powerful energy- perhaps the most vigorous energy I’ve ever felt from a landform. As the glacial ice fell into the sea, the earth boomed. The ocean boomed. As a wee human, I could feel that boom deep in my being; past my core and into the intangible.  

AK is inexplicably alive. Eagles, otters, bears, whales, puffins, atmospheric rivers, howling winds, flora in all its multitudes. It felt like earth in its most raw form. 

I saw parts of people I love in lush green rainforest & the deep turquoise water. 

I saw parts of myself in the waterfalls- sprawling unpredictably in every direction yet always connected to the source. 

The Kenai Fjords were the Lofoten Islands of Northern Norway and New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds, but also something completely new. A bit wilder, a bit more metal. A beast in their own right. 

Everything there is extreme: the colors, the weather, the peaks, the energy. I’ll hold it with me forever & mirror it in the ways I can. 

Cheers AK, I have a feeling it’s just the beginning.