New Years Poems

Sunrise:	8:39 AM AST
Sunset:	3:30 PM AST

19F Mostly cloudy


A Navajo poem, via Josef Olsen on a spirituality walk through Totem Park.

As I Walk with Beauty

As I walk, as I walk

The universe is walking with me

In beauty it walks before me

In beauty it walks behind me

In beauty it walks below me

In beauty it walks above me

Beauty is on every side

As I walk, I walk with Beauty.

Inspired by the poem above, I wrote the poem below with love for my JV Sitka community:

Our Journey Together

We journey on a muddy rooted path.

Rain falls indiscriminately,

on us,

on verdant moss,

on the red flesh of decomposing stumps,
seeping deep into the humus

like breath into our hungry lungs.

I look ahead and beauty walks before me:

under a red hood, under a black jacket.

I turn around to see how beauty walks behind me:

in swishing navy blue, in robin hood green.

To my left are cedars, trees that know

just where we are.

To my right is the mountain that knows

just where we are going:

Up the path together, with hope for a view

Of the world

Just,

As it should be.


Our most recent spirituality night we came up with New Years resolutions under the categories of Personal (I want to camp outdoors in a tent overnight here in Alaska), Spiritual (I want to experience a sweat lodge), Kitchen Concoction (I want to cook a four dish veggie meal without burning anything), and Community (I want to do an energy fast. More on this when we do it!). I'm looking forward to all of these- I'll keep you posted on how they go.

Merry Christmas!

Sunrise:	8:39 AM AST
Sunset:	3:22 PM AST

34F Sunny in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon.

Merry Christmas from Sitka!

The photo above is of Meg, Whitney and me on our winter wonderland hike two weeks ago when our male housemates were out of town. The three mountains in the background are the Three Sisters that I can see from my office window-- we decided to adopt a Sister each. :)

So. Christmas season as a JV in Sitka; the paucity of recent posts may be proof of the business of the season, but that may indeed be universal. Yesterday afternoon I was standing over the sink, doing dishes, listening to Charlie Brown Christmas music and wistfully reflecting. 

How is Christmas different this year? Let me count the ways.

1. I'm in charge of the side dishes for Christmas dinner. Eeeep.

2. My housemates and I hand made most of our presents, and the wrapping paper (crooked candy canes galore! All these crafts bring back my childhood, it's fantastic.) 

3. It snowed on Christmas Eve. :D I now wear long underwear like it's a second skin.

4. This past week I've been skating outdoors on the beautiful Swan Lake (about the size of three football fields) under the clear starry sky framed by snow capped mountain peaks.  They put up a big Stadium style light so we can skate after the sun sets (at 3:15ish, mind you). I love what a community activity it is: parents pulling their infants around in sleds, people skating with their dogs, friends tossing around hockey pucks. Every time I've gone skating some of my friends have been their, enjoying the "rink" while the freezing clear weather holds. 

5.  At Midnight Mass last night, the entrance hymn had an extra accidental "practice run" until they realized the priest wasn't ready, so they got to do it again. 6. Most of my Christmas wish list came from REI. 

7. I'm not with my biological family, but with four wonderful people that I have come to love like siblings. 

8. We have a real Christmas tree! Hand cut by Josef and Andrew the legal distance off the Crosstrail.  Apparently we're turning a blind eye to the environmental impact of "topping" a tree in a National Forest. Hrmmm. Not a shining JV moment, but I guess an example of how when you're living in a community, the value for community sometimes out weighs other values like environmental social justice.

One thing that has remained the same is how much Christmas music makes the season for me. A brass ensemble comprised of members of the San Francisco, Seattle, Boston Symphonies came for the annual Christmas Brass Concert in Sitka High School's new auditorium. The venue is gorgeous and the brass were fantastic. I was on cloud nine. I felt like I was in a metropolitan area again! And it brought back all my trumpet playing band nerdiness from high school. They even played a quartet I played in high school! I almost jumped from my seat and grabbed one of their horns and joined in. You know I wanted to. But the mambo finale took the cake, and after bopping in my seat the whole song, I swore to myself that I would get to know the organizer of the concert. He also organizes the Sitka Fine Arts Camp every summer. This town is small, but it contains some amazing cultural gems.

I hope Christmas day is lit by simple love with friends and family. Peace be with you all!

Polar Dip 2008

It’s in the twenties today, and Sitkans are officially crazy. Annually, Sitkans gather at a boat ramp on Japonski Island, strip down to their bare skin and swimming trunks. Brrrr! En mass, they run to the 40F water for some shock therapy, emerging from their plunge with big grins. Andrew claimed to feel very “rejuvenated.” Here’s a picture of Whitney and Andrew feeling very refreshed.

 Another friend Shari beamed at me in her dripping bikini and gave me a quick run down on hypothermia research conducted by “Dr. Popsicle” at the University of Fairbanks. Funny that would come to her mind at that moment. Our friend David brought his Frisbee into the water with him and tossed it back and forth with his brother. Locals. They keep one-upping us on insanity. 

A Buck

December 12, 2008. Last night was our first snow!

Sunrise:
8:29 AM AST
Sunset:
3:19 PM AST

36F and clear.

A week ago I was outside of my office in the dark, and cold, in a quest for better cellphone reception. What I did find was a buck grazing in the quasi forest behind our office. I was surprised to see it only had one antler and reported this to my coworkers. Well. This got quite the response. As three of us women creeped back outside to investigate my claim, Becky whispered to us that she was particularly interested as she was going hunting that weekend. If the bucks had started losing their antlers already, she had less chance of getting one with a nice big set. Hrm. Hadn't thought to worry about that myself, really. At this point the buck was not facing us and Becky started calling it with this funny kazoo like noise, in attempt to get a better look. It was not having any of it, and and we eventually lost patience squinting at the buck in the darkness and got to chatting about Becky's hunting exploits. Eventually she said something that cracked me up, my laugh startling the buck, and his head whipped our direction, uni-antlered and everything.
So. Need a good look at a buck? Tell me a joke and I can turn heads.

Fast forward one week. Over that weekend, Becky has gotten her first buck. No antlers on this one, but the crazy thing is, she made Fox News online for it. Check it out at the link below. Ha!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,465144,00.html

Journey to Yakutat

December 9th and 10th I had the opportunity to travel to the fishing town of Yakutat, AK.  Our agency is setting up substance abuse services there and I was sent to create connections with the Yakutat magistrate and police. 

Yakutat is one of the farthest north towns in Southeast Alaska: its weather is slightly colder, and even in the summer the population is only a third the population of Sitka. Without the draw of summer fishing, the winter population is further dwindled to 550. However, before Russian colonization, it was a commercial hub at the crux of many rivers. Sitkan mountains are around 2,000-3,000tf, but Mt. Elias looms behind Yakutat at an impressive 18,000 ft. The biggest surprise for me was that Yakutat is becoming a surfing mecca, with surfers coming from far and wide for the 20ft swells. Sounds like quite a ride if you can take the chill. I was a little disappointed the ocean was calmer than that when we were there.

After hearing my housemate Meg's stories of traveling to Angoon for a work trip, I was prepared to expect the unexpected. So sitting in the boarding area at Sitka's airport at 5:30 am and hearing an announcement that the weather in Juneau may result in our being rerouted through Ketchikan and Anchorage to get to Yakutat, I took a deep breath and got ready for what life was offering us that day: 13 hours of flying. 

7 flights--from Sitka to:

Juneau, whoops, nope-- the visibility is too poor, not Juneau. 

We are then rerouted to Ketchikan,

Wrangell

St Petersburg

Anchorage

Cordova 

Juneau again

and finally, Yakutat.

Phew. 

Fortunately I had my journal, Collections of Poems by Wendell Berry, and a nice deficiency of sleep to keep me in dream land.  

The Tribal Social Services were our hosts and are our partners in service delivery in Yakutat. The women that work there are very committed to their community and wonderfully hospitable. I was amused that our plane got in almost an hour early, but since Cindy heard the plane fly in, she came on over to the airport to welcome us. On our way to the apartment we stopped at one of the two grocery stores for dinner (no restaurants-- unless you count the bar).

I got to explore a little bit in the morning. The town is more raw and industrial than Sitka. Four wheelers, miles and miles of roads (originally laid down for the logging business)....  My favorite part was visiting the beach during our lunch break. Beautiful, open, black sand beach. If it wasn't for the chill and hail I could have been in northern California. 

I left truly hoping that our agency can provide the substance abuse services needed for that community. However, the time and monetary cost of the journey there and back is considerable, so if its not us, someone else. The importance of having someone that is local providing behavioral health services is something we've been discussing since our trip and hopefully a local person can be hired. I don't think I will be returning to Yakutat soon, but I'm thankful for the glimpse into small town southeastern Alaskan life. Sitka has never seemed such a booming metropolis.

Kuspuks!

In October, Sharon, invited us over to a friend’s house to learn to cut out a pattern to make a Kuspuk. Beautiful calicos spread smooth, the slice, slice sound of the shears… the seamstress Rachel was cutting the shapes of the pieces from memory, sizing things relative to basic lengths like the length of the arm, and from shoulder to hip. I reminded me of watching and helping my mother sew… so imagine my joy when Rachel offered to teach us how to sew our own if we brought our own fabric.
What’s a Kuspuk? It’s a traditional Inupiat summer top, approximately like a sweatshirt with front pockets and hood, but with a little frill skirt around the bottom. and made out of calico or cotton and . I first saw one at Jesuit Volunteer Corps Orientation, worn by our Alaska area director, Sarah Kinsel. Here in Sitka, the dominant native tradition is Tlingit, different from the native groups of central and western Alaska. The only Kuspuks seen in Sitka are worn by the Mt Edgecumbe Native Alaskan boarding school students. Many Mt. Edgecumbe students are from Yupik, Inupiat, and Aleutian backgrounds and wear them proudly. I'm hoping I'm using quasi-correct terms here, I'm probably not, please forgive me.

The time spent creating the kuspuks was very pleasant. Rachel is very hospitable, and a good teacher. I don't think I'll quit my day job, though. Meg was a pro, and I'm absolutely certain my sister would have taken to sewing the kuspuks like a wiz, but I'll admit I got a little flustered when time and time again I kept forgetting to put the sewing pedal down to secure the material and the needle. Fortunately, Rachel was very patient with me.

The most priceless gift of our time sewing was a little nugget of wisdom Rachel shared with us. When I sewed the trim on my hood I realized that my stitch meandered wave-like across the trim, and I got a little sad that I hadn't been more careful. Rachel heard my squawking and assured me that every native artist leaves a mistake on purpose, to show it was made by a human, not a machine. I made sure to leave lots of mistakes all over the kuspuk, just in case anyone was wondering if I am human or not.


I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and got many compliments when I wore it to work on Monday. I also got many comments on the color. The fabric I chose is a pink Indonesian batik fabric with ribbon trim, not native alaskan at all. I don't think anyone has ever seen a pink kuspuk before, and I know I have never seen a blonde person wearing one (though I'm sure I'm not the first). So in my our own way, we've given birth to a modern Alaskan creation, and have made some good friendships in the process.

Gogo JVs??? Oh no....

Well, Meaghan Elizabeth Baier and Eileen Clare Sisk are the last JV’s standing in Sitka—our housemates are taking early holiday trips to visit family before we all hunker down to celebrate Christmas together here in Sitka. Meg and I had lots planned to do together this weekend to keep from dwelling too much on how much we missed them, but little did we know how exciting it would get. Or how embarrassing!

Tonight it was the monthly grind that brought new excitement into our lives—this week when we ran into the Grind organizer and asked how we could help as volunteers, he replied, “Oh, great! You guys can help model the wearable art!” and proceeded to introduce us to the wearable art designer from Ketchikan. She sized us up, asked us if we owned any gogo boots, and told us to meet her the next day to try on the hip huggers for size. For some reason, the words “No thanks, actually, I have some self-pride to preserve,” had slipped my mind... too bad. Our fate was set.



So tonight as the Grind commenced, Meg and I stood at the back looking out over the audience of 100 fellow Sitkans, counting how many coworkers and friends we were about to make total fools of ourselves in front of. As one of them put it after the show, they were about to “see a totally different side” of us. Ah yes. So imagine some great disco music in the background, accented with clapping and cheers, and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. One important note: the "fabric" is made out of wonder bread bags. It was wonderful to say the least, har har...

You know you live in Rural Southeast Alaska if:

1. You have a running shopping list for your next trip "Down South."
2. Your brother comes to visit and accuses you of sounding like Sarah Palin.
3. A central piece of a December dinner is fish you helped catch in August. You love this refrigerator magnet: "Mad cow. Happy salmon."
4. Your biggest household pest is mold fed by the condensation pooling on your windowsills.
5. Your coworker hangs her rainjacket on a set of antlers- from a buck she shot herself.
6. Your body practically purrs under the strange blue glow of the Seasonal Affective Disorder light.
7. Getting ready to leave the office at 3:30pm to run an errand involves pulling on rainpants, wool socks, neoprene boots, rainjacket, your hat and helmet, waterproof gloves, and most importantly, a bright red blinky blinky light so no one runs into you on the pitch dark dirt road you will be biking down.
8. Avocadoes are worth their weight in gold.
9. You ask for Smart Wool socks for Christmas. You may have even opened this Christmas present early because you are so excited about them.
10. Opening your front door to see the morning light hit the misty mountains and harbor takes your breath away, time and time again.

Advent

Sunrise:	8:12 AM AST
Sunset:	3:26 PM AST

36F Overcast.



Advent
We are waiting.
Watching the light diminish,
Waiting for light to come.
Lighting candles, our
burning hope.

The return of growing daylight after the winter solstice (Dec 21) brings new depth to the celebration of Christmas (Dec 24). During our spirituality night this week we meditated on the darkness, and the light in our lives. During the reflection time, I came to appreciate how the darkness I encounter in working in the substance abuse field is balanced with the light and joy I draw from living in community. My house-mates bring so much joy into my life, and the Sitka community is very supportive of us as well: offering food, transportation, fun events, appreciating the work that we do...
Photo courtesy of Andrew, photographer extraodinaire. Cresent Harbor at dusk.

God's World

God’s World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
A strecheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me, let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

...poem via Supriya Misra...

Calzones by torch-light

I would like to dedicate this blog entry to my housemate, Josef. Not only did his family send him candles covered in birdseed that transform into torches, but he made us fantastic calzones. Did I mention his assistant Whitney? I love how these pictures turned out. Yay for community!

In touch with our dinner.

Friday we got a call from our friend Tyler- he and his father had gone hunting this week and shot 6 deer (!) He was generously going to share some with us, but wanted to get us in on processing the meat. You know, the part that comes between the deer's death and us eating it through out the rest of the year. Meg was disappointed that the butchering part had happened earlier this week, (Context: Meg enjoys wearing pearls and monogrammed jewelery. I love my housemates. They never cease to surprise me.) But no worries, the hunks of meat still needed to be sliced into meal sized portions and trimmed, so she still got to wield a knife :)



So. Here's how it goes.

1. Take the blood filled pots of meat, and pick out a hunk of meat.

2. Size it up, deciding if its best as a tenderloin, backstrap, roast, or steak.










3. Slice accordingly. Ask Meggers for the details on this part, she was trimming and slicing apprentice.

4. Wrap tightly in seran wrap (this needs to be a different person, as bloody hands and seran wrap are not a functional combination. heh.)




5. Wrap in butcher paper, tightly, not unlike wrapping christmas presents. Tape shut to keep freezer burn out.

6. Date and label the package, so that through out the year, when you go to cook, you'll pick out the cuts of meat you want, and eat the oldest soonest.

7. At a later date, pull out of the freezer, defrost, and saute/grill/stew to your heart's content!

It was so satisfying to be involved in the process of how we get the food we eat. This venison is about as organic and low carbon footprint as you can get. And tasty! We saute-ed up some tenderoin to sink our teeth into as we cooked. I'm enjoying backing into this part of the cycle of life- first eating freshly hunted venison, then helping process it... I hope to help butcher later this winter, and then maybe go hunting... Can you believe I'm saying this? But it just makes so much sense in this context. Everything other than meat and fish, berries and potatoes has to be barged over to the island we live on. It's far more sustainable here than processed tofu, for instance. Alaska is a special place.

Tonight we had venison stew for dinner. With homemade french bread. Fantastic.

Inspired at work...

Sunrise:	7:55 AM AST
Sunset:	3:38 PM AST

43F. Mostly cloudy. I would just like to comment that the last 3 times I've looked at the weather to post on my blog, the forecast for the week was accompanied by visual pictures by clouds with three huge raindrops. For every day. So pessimistic! This has not been the case that it has rained constantly... Okay, so it has rained every day at some point, but I've personally adjusted my weather-o-meter to notice not when is it going to rain, but rather when there will be times when it is clear. And in general, we've noticed that with transition to overnight freezes and frozen puddles in the potholes on the road, there has been more days with clear moments, sunshine streaking the clouds... During a this morning's run through Totem Park I got to squat down beside the ocean and meditate on MtEdgecumbe in the dawning light.

I'd tell you about the fantastic meals our house has been cooking this week : veggie curry, miso glazed ling cod with wasabi mashed potatoes, eggplant parmesan for Andrew Paul DeFeo's 24th birthday party (note his "hand"- made crown, heh heh), but I won't. If I did, I would have officially become an old person (defined as one who only talks about the weather and cooking.)

So to balance that out, a poetic tidbit inspired at work:

The Song of the Substance Abuse Counselor

We are like prophets.
Unwelcome, but
True.

Jonah, I may
Be coming to understand the
Allure of the inside
Of a whale.

The USA is BIG.

Flying from Sitka to Florida is a big ordeal. A flight to Seattle (via Ketchikan), a night layover. A day of flying across a continent to Florida, being amazed by the massiveness that is suburban sprawl and American civilization.

In Florida it was so warm and muggy, 85F on Saturday. I was very amused that I didn't need to use my down jacket on my layover in Seattle, but I did need to use it in the hotel room air conditioning. Ahhh, the south. The conference was at a hotel on Disney property, so we got to see Epcot and fireworks the last night I was there, which was fun. Walk around outside without a jacket, that was fun, too :)

My conference experience was affirming. I got to reconnect with all the fantastic people (Kelly, Tali, and Elena, you are wonderful and I miss you...) and the interesting work that I did at the CAAN (Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience) lab at Stanford. It felt like a coming out party for our lab's baby, (the project on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder.) Much intellectual fanfare, it was great.

On my way back to Sitka, I got to spending a day at home, with my family, which was wonderful. It was "cold" in Houston, a clear 55 F day, perfect for a bike ride on the bayou trail, and a cat nap on the couch with my sister Anne (and our dog Chico, but don't tell my Dad he was on the couch!) with sun streaming through the window. Also had an early Christmas at REI. Nothing like the combination of living simply and Alaskan weather to get you excited about buying socks! :) I love my family so, so much, and eating three meals with them, and giving them real hugs was the true highlight of the trip. Gotta make those hugs last until May, when I come home for Mother's Day!

Kayaking to the Humpback Whales

Stephen came to visit on Whale Fest weekend.
And we went to visit the whales. In kayaks. We paddled out into the channel, looking for spouts, saw some and headed their direction. And they came ours! It was so incredible, these slow rolling backs, with the humpback ridges. We saw the tails a few times, too. Meg was freaking out the entire time- if the whales had breached near us we would have capsized into hypothermic Alaskan water.

Photos compliments of Zach.

Eileen's adventures in cooking

November7, 2008

Sunrise:	7:25 AM AST (<--that's Alaska Standard Time)
Sunset:	4:03 PM AST

41F, and calm and clear (!)

The poem below is dedicated to anyone who is concerned that Alaska has changed me beyond recognition. No worries, I'm still me :) We were over at a friends house watching the election, and I put some potato wedges in the oven to make french fries, got distracted playing their piano, and the rest is history...

9 Potatoes

9 potatoes,
washed, peeled,
wedged, oiled,
spread, seasoned,
oven baked.
….
10 fingers,
my peelers and slicers,
are washed, now
spread over the piano,
arched, pressing
47 smooth keys,
supporting one voice
wailing over it all...
…
until one nose, 2 nostrils sense
one billion smellable burnt molecules,
so 10 fingers in 2 giant oven mitts
open the oven/cremator and take out
the remains of
9 potatoes.

Hiking to work

November 4th, 2008

Sunrise:	7:16 AM AST
Sunset:	4:12 PM AST

39F


I hiked to get to work today. It was simply lovely. Gavan's Hill trail starts about three blocks away from the Jesuit Volunteer house, and intersects with the Crosstrail. Aptly named, this trail crosses the base of Gavan's Hill, across a muskeg valley at the base of the Sisters, to the Indian River Trail head, which is about 100 yards away from where I work. It took about four times as long as my usual commute, but was far more than four times better an experience...
Sigh. It is so good to cross streams, brush up against mossy trees, and squish through puddles in the morning. I even heard and then saw two red flanked salmon struggling up a creek! This was a surprise to me, as I thought all the salmon had already completed their journeys.

I'd like to share a favorite poem of mine, by David Wagoner:

Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Halloween Parties, All souls day cemeteries

What makes a good Halloween Party?
Lets see.... start with:
Intergalactic Nerf guns,



































And awesome costumes :)

Josef = Dr. Who
Meggers=Juno
Andrew= Bleaker
Eileen= Princess Leia





In Eileen's opinion, the best Sitkan costume: A long line skate, hook, line, (two hallibuts) and a buoy:













And now in honor of All Souls Day today:

The beautiful Sitka Native Cemetery




















Military Cemetery:

First Freeze!

October 30, 2008
Sunrise: 8:07AM
Sunset: 5:21PM
39F Mostly sunny skies with variable winds throughout the afternoon.

This morning I pulled my bike out of our shed under the deck, and was surprised to see a film of ice on a puddle near the street. Last night was the first freeze, and today was the first clear blue sky I've seen in Sitka in weeks. It is so gorgeous. Snow capped mountains against a cerulean blue sky. On my bike to work I even saw Mount Edgecumbe, Sitka's elusive volcanic mountain that has its own weather pattern that usually involves hiding in the clouds (similar to Denali, aka outside of Alaska as Mt. McKinley).
Yay!

Anchorage and Wasilla

JVC Fall Retreat- good times. Set in a winter wonderland, the 5 Sitka JV's got to enjoy a relaxed time of reflection with the 22 other Alaska Jesuit Volunteers, focused on building right relationships within ourself, with our house communities, and with the world around us.

It all started Friday at an ungodly hour (4:30am!), heading to the airport for our flight through Juneau to Anchorage. We had such bad turbulence during our landing in Juneau that the pilot actually pulled us back up, circled around, and went for it again. "Unacceptable winds." We discovered that Alaskan airports are interesting. They only have one terminal, all alaska air, and they all have stuffed bears behind glass. Oh, and security takes special care to point out that you can't take your ulu in your carry on bag.



Our flights came into Anchorage early Friday and left late Monday, so we spent the time before and after the retreat at the Anchorage JV house. Thanks for your hospitality, Anchorage JV's! They drove us places, fed us banana bread, and homemade tea (lemon leaves, dried orange peels, dried rosehips).
The mountain ranges surrounding Anchorage shocked me with their immensity. Some of us went on a walk around the lake near their house. Its a water plane park, I don't know if you can see them in the photo... I was sooooo cold when I took this picture. We went on the walk with the Bethel JV's who flew in from living on the tundra, where the temperature has already been as low as 5F. I tried to be tough and not wear a hat and gloves with my lined coat. Bad idea. By the time we were walking back my face was so numb it was hard to talk, it was like being novacained. Also, PS, if you are wondering if life on the tundra changes people, when we passed by a tree with bright red berries, Erin pulled a cluster off, smelled it, musing "I wonder if these are edible." I'm pretty sure the answer in this case would be no, but when meat, fish, and berries are the only natural foods and a block of cheese is 15 dollars, it seems to change a person. Am I right Erin?

The Anchorage JV house so different than our snug little Sitka apartment. A large, rambling suburban house covered in psychodelic shag carpeting and as if the floor is not enough, one room even has a shag accent wall :) Not to mention their neighborhood was covered in Ted Stevens and McCain Palin signs (I've never seen one before...even in Sitka), and there was a moose running (actually, it was more of an awkward shallop, shallop) down the street as we drove out toward our retreat house.


Friday afternoon we drove through Wasilla to the Meier (Gorgeous) Lake Retreat center. Our cabins reminded me of the bunk bedrooms in the Amoco Norway hyttes. Maybe that was just the dry air, and the heater warmth, but it sent me back. The biggest surprise to me was that everyday we saw moose hanging out near the cabins, and once right outside the bathrooms!







The picture above is of Meggers, enjoying the four straight days of sparking sunshine, as the sun sets on the mountains surrounding Meier lake.

The retreat center was such a relaxed, good time. We spent a lot of time just hanging out, playing in the snow, star gazing, doing yoga, hearing about the amazing work that our peers are doing, learning about other parts of Alaska.
The best part was that I felt the depth of our Sitka JV community, as one member found out about a death in her family and had to leave early and go home for a week. We've really felt her absence since she left, but it was good to see everyone come together around prioritizing what's important, and trying to care for her needs.
We also had a good time simply enjoying eachother's company, appreciating all we've experienced together in just 3 months. Since we've come back, I've felt closer to each member of my community.










Monday we had some city exploration time in Anchorage. It was weird being back in a city-- seeing so much concrete again was almost like the feeling when your favorite TV show ands and it returns to commercials for the next show coming on, or for hair dye, or Olive Gardens. Highlights of the city trip were that Meggers got her nose pierced, and Fran and Mike (Bethel JVs) and I hit up REI. It was awesome realizing that so much more of the equipment there had real meaning for me now. I could picture myself using the snow shoes, and mooned over the headlamps for a long time...
Signing off with Fran demonstrating an Alaskan peace sign.