Quite a take off

Friday was a good day. I got to participate in a meeting at work, and have a good conversation about social work vs clinical psychology with one of the family therapists. The best part: the sun shined! Well, it still looked gray and ominous up around the Gavan Hill and Verstovia east of us, but the sun was playing on the mountains across Sitka sound, and shining on our faces, which is all I ask :) My community was pretty pooped from a long week at work, but we had to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather. Meg and Whitney and I did some fantastic tide pool frolicking, and found six of the biggest starfish I've ever seen, and got to watch a plane take off across Sitka Sound, on the sliver runway on Japonski Island. When you come visit me, (wink wink) you'll land on this runway :)

Sitka ABCs

Hello friends and family!
I have been seriously remiss about telling you all about Sitka as a city. 9 thousand people, and on Tuesday this week, as many as 45 hundred tourists. Fisherman, Coast Guard, and rugged individualism tempered by a healthy respect for the need for community during the cold, dark and rainy winters.
In honor of school having started for many young Sitkan children, but not for me, my housemates and I have created a Sitka Alphabet. It amused us on our rain forest in the clouds hike up and down from Mount Verstovia last Saturday with our wonderful new friend and life long Sitkan, Matt Hunter.

A is for Andrew: Hailing from Philadelphia, he's a snarky indie music lover, with impeccable taste and a tendency to do handstands in picturesque locations when traveling the world.
B is for Biking to work. My year was made when I found out that the gravel road I ride to work is going to get paved in September. I thought it was rough biking until I got a ride from a friend- the pot holes are harder to miss in a car.
C is for Community living. Cooking, cleaning, hiking together. Deciding how to spend our money together has been the most challenging, but for the community account I get a cool visa debit card that says Eileen C Sisk Jesuit Volunteer.
D is for Docks at Crescent Harbor: our safe haven for walks, and a home for fishing boats. An entry all of those neighbors is coming soon :)
E is for Eileen: happy to be in sunny sunny Sitka!
F is for Friendly Former Jesuit Volunteers (JVs) welcoming us from the get go. They introduced us into the 20-somethings clique. Its fun crowd: most have service jobs, serving the school system during the year and recreational tourism jobs in the summer, or work for parks and wildlife. Former JVs drop off goodies and have lots of advice and help for us starting our year here.
G is for Gavan's Hill, which we hiked after our first day of work :) I didn't take my camera, so I'll have to get some pictures from my housemates. Or go up there again.
H is for How well I'm eating even on a small budget. Fresh fruits and vegetables are especially prized, and especially expensive, but fish isn't, since it comes as gifts from friends, or bounty from our fishing trips. Our cheapest dinner so far was salmon and seasoned brown rice :) We found that funny since a similar dinner at a restaurant would have cost a total of 100$.
I is for Investing in good rain gear and in community. Both are gloom repellent.
J is for Joseph: Gonzaga University grad from north of Seattle, this former volunteer firefighter is also a chef extraordinaire and works with me at my agency, as a case manager.






K is for Kayaking: can't wait for my next chance to go! I am addicted. As Emily Bradford put it after reading my blog entry on kayaking adventure, it all plastic for me next time.
L is for Loving the Library: the local library has a window big enough for a full length view of the Sound. Computers with the internet, and up to 70 books at a time. 70. kinda excessive, but I'm not complaining.
M is for Meggers: This sassy housemate is from Buffalo New York, and proud of it. A hockey fanatic and avid dance partier, she is working at the domestic violence shelter with Whitney.






N is for Not having a car (thus, biking, walking and bumming rides) which is not too bad when there is only 13 miles of road from one end of the city to the other.
O is for Otters. They're cute, but more skittish than seals, I hear.
P is for Potlucks. Yum. I ate some great vegan cookies last week that blew me away.
Q is for Quirky locals. You should see some of the houses on the islands in Sitka sound. One woman is famous for boating in every week, then biking to play the accordion for the Pioneer home, and host a Polka radio show. We caught her biking over the bridge to Japonski Island.






R is for Russian Bishops House (a national park monument next door) Haven't been yet because it costs some money, which is silly, but it's free on Alaska Day, so I'll be getting be checking out the insides then. Thats the old school house next to it in the picture.
S is for Salmon jumping in Indian River. It started during the olympics, so we did some salmon jumping olympic judging.








T is for Tlingit totem poles: Story trees, beautiful and mysterious. Its like a permanent picture book in the forest.












U is for Ultimate Frisbee: played Sunday and Thursday evenings, I keep trying to make it to play. Wish me luck! I'm pretty terrible... but it seems like it would be a fun way to get to hang out with people. We also have Hames Athletic Center to work out at. I enjoy working the eliptical there: the work out room is a loft of the basketball court, so you can work out while watching the karate kids or a pick up basketball game, all under an American and Alaskan flag.

V is for Verstovia: The mountain we climbed, hence the V sign we're flashing in the picture :) My first rain forest hike, and look! I'm still smiling at the end. The trick is layering, and not wearing cotton, i'm told.








W is for Whitney. This fun and sweet member of our clan is from Indiana, went to college at Butler University, is applying for law school, and has a tendency to squeal and call things she loves "so cute and little!" She didn't think this dead crab was cute and little. She swore she saw the legs moving.







X is for Xtra Tufs: these photogenic boots have already been a subject of an entire blog entry... I like them a lot :)










Y is for Yoga. Everywhere and anywhere.






Z is for Zoos- if by zoos I mean a Raptor Center rehabilitating Bald Eagles, and a bear habitat for two baby grizzly bears.

Eileen the Executioner

Our friend Tyler took Meg and Whitney fishing last thursday, and took me and the guys fishing the next day. Never gone fishing? Me neither! In honor of the substance abuse related work I'm doing, here's the 12 step process for Alaskan fishing.

1st step: Gear up.
2nd step: Launch.
3rd step: Find estuary, snag a few pink salmon
4th step: Filet 'em!
5th step: Boat around looking for bears


6th step: Start pulling up the long line skate (200 ft of line with weights, hooks, and bait) thats been "soaking" for 2 days.
7th step: spot the big one splashing beside the boat, tell Eileen her job is to be the "executioner", so she should find the pistol in the bag.
8th step: Eileen silently freaks out.
9th step: Tyler pulls up the 50 lb halibut, realizes he can just gaff the fish to death, and wrangles it onto the boat.
10th step: Pull up 3 lingcod, creating a total of 120lbs of fish on the skiff,
11th step: Slowly put-put up to the nearest beach to snap a few bounty prize photos, clean and filet the fish.
12th step: go home, take a shower, and start bragging about our day's catch at the potluck that night.

Salmon Berries!

I would like you to meet the fine delicacy, the salmon berry, found by Swan Lake (I kid you not). They are popular with Sitkans, JVs (Jesuit Volunteers), and brown bears.
Salmon berries are pretty tangy and tasty. They come in red, and a yellow with red tip variety. Yum yum!

Paddling

Thursday's paddling trip out to visit the Otters in Sitka Sound was breath taking. Emily Bradford, a new friend and fellow Sitka enthusiast, took us out on an island otter sighting trip. Thanks Emily! Kayaking brings one so close to the water, which near harbor was as smooth as glass. On the left is a pic of housemate Josef (aka Brosef) pulling my kayak off the racks.

So before you think the trip was entirely idyllic, the fact that this was my first kayaking trip did actually play into my experience. I had paddled a canoe at summer camp, maybe doggy paddled a kayak around Greenlake near my brother Stephen's apartment. So after Emily's fantastic crash course in kayaking (the pushing away with the opposite hand does do wonders), squeezed myself a long shallow tube of (beautifully shaped) plastic, rooting around in my Xtra Tuf boots for the rudder pedals. Despite the paddling basic of paddling on your right to gliding to the left, these rudder pedals send you in the same direction as the pedal you push. This probably works fine for paddling machines with arms on auto pilot, but I felt like I was patting my head and rubbing my belly as I watched my kayak zigzag and my companions grow smaller and smaller on the gorgeous horizon. I came to the conclusion that my right arm must be hording all the spinach because seemed almost magnetically attracted to the coast to my left. It took pushing the right pedal to the metal to stay straight. Look to the left for a serene picture of me during a much appreciated break from paddling, taken by andrew from his kayak. Fortunately, I got my kayaking act together before we hit the rolling seas. When we reached the sound, the waves and small swells began. We paddled around little islands surrounded by kelp, where the otters play. I didn't snap any good pictures of them, but it was absolutely enchanting to see their little heads peek up, then see the splash as the dive under.
We beached on a little rocky island, covered in tide pools full of sea anenomes and starfish.
The layering of misty clouds and rays of sunlight highlighting the spiky evergreen islands took my breath away (picture to the right ->).
My little kayak blundering self appreciated a little Sitka is absolutely gorgeous commercial break on the island we beached at. Prancing in the tide pools and scrambling on rocks was working for me, but then we realized we needed to get back home and Emily asked me if I'd like to use the sleek, turquoise (fiberglass) kayak because she preferred the size of the one I had used on the way out.
Put simply, my launch was regrettable- a wave (about 6in high, ) came before I could get out past the rocks. My surprise turned tragic as the beautiful kayak and myself went parallel to the wave and scraped over a tricksy patch of rocks. As a side note, I happen to admire the consistency of waves, able to break over and over, again and again, but this was not a moment I was contemplating waves' beautiful consistency; the waves took me back and forth scraping over this patch and another, but never all the way over into the sea. Total panic ensues when I realized the rocky patches were to high to let me paddle out forward- the beautiful kayak, not mine, was being ruined by my lack of skills. There was lots of yelling occurring, me offering to abandon ship, and my friends instructing me to paddle backwards. Backwards? Can't I just jump out of this thing? I think I was at most 8 feet from shore during all of this drama. I thought maybe they couldn't hear this offer to jump out because they just kept yelling for me to paddle backwards. Now, with 2020 hindsight vision I can come to my own defense and say that about five feet to my left was the rocky bank of the island. My current theory is that I was instinctively refusing to paddle backwards because without eyes on the back of my head or really any backward paddling experience to speak of, it felt likely I would paddle left into the rocky bank. That theory aside, I had given paddling backward some pathetic little attempts in between waves and it had only adjusted my angle for the next wave to power sandpapering the beautiful little kayak over the rocks.(There's Emily looking cool as a cucumber as we were frolicking on the islands minutes prior. If I remember correctly, she had a slightly different posture as I ground the expensive kayak to a pulp.)
Finally I realized my friends weren't just ignoring my offers to end this fiasco by bailing, they really thought I could make it kayaking backwards, so I went for it. Andrew, Brosef, Emily: thanks for believing in me. Fortunately, I made it out and was able to make one last mental scrape: peeling my self dignity from the bottom of the ocean floor. I paddled a little ways out waiting for them to follow, only to be embarrassed further glancing back to see Brosef waving my forgotten red life-vest in the air. Ehhhhh.... yep that was mine. So, I'm feeling pretty sheepish as they grab it for me and ease into the ocean with grace.
Ready for the moment of redemption? I sure was. A little ways in on our way back Emily cheered me up by proclaiming from her roost in the orange kayak I'd paddled on the way out, "Eileen, this kayak, the one you were paddling on the way out has a crooked rudder- its amazing you were able to paddle so straight!" So maybe I'm not Popeye, not even half-popeye, and maybe I'm not so smooth on the launches, and maybe I won't be jumping to paddle any expensive kayaks anytime soon, but on my first paddle into Sitka Sound, my new friend thought I problem-solved a crotchety rudder with style :)
(If you're worried for the kayak, Emily was a sweetheart about it, and fortunately, on later inspection, it didn't seem that the rocks had done noticeable damage to the kayak). And don't you worry about me- our kayaking adventure was just one more step towards falling in love with Sitka, and I can tell you, paddling through the Sound with otters and playful friends, amidst sunshine breaking through the mist has indeed whetted my appetite for more.

Rooted in Justice, Growing in Peace: JVC NW Orientation

Monday, August 4th I boarded a train through the cascades to Portland, Oregon for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest's orientation. On the car ride out to the camp we were staying at, small talk with the friendly faces sitting around me uncovered the surprising fact that I was the only one who hadn't kayaked before. Not to worry, though, only two of them had made their own kayaks (!) I had come wearing my hippiest tshirt (my "salaam, shalom, peace" shirt bought at the 2006 SOA protest in Georgia), and immediately connected with Erin, who had been to the protest numerous years and recognized the shirt. Through out the week, I think I saw four other people wearing variations of that same shirt. kinda cool.
I was 1 of 101 volunteers coming to orientation. The camp we were at was nestled in a beautiful Oregon forest, and my cabin was one peaceful walk away from the meeting hall.

Walking down rooty paths in
hiking boots, flexible and sturdy.
I've never felt such warmth of purpose-
forgetting jealousies and getting
lost in the ferns ,
finding my nap on the bank of the creek.
Finding my housemates with hugs
welcoming tomorrow,
thankful for life.

We began the orientation with a smudging (purifying with sweet grass smoke) ceremony by a young leader of a native community to mollola Oregon, where our camp was.

Smudge smoke floats,
higher.
The muddle in my heart
yearning to escape and drift,
higher.
Free my throat to breathe.

One of the highlights of orientation was getting to know the four fantastic people who I'm living in community with here in Sitka. Meg, Whitney, Josef and Andrew are all awesome people, who I'm certain will be featured often on this blog. We capped our orientation experience by taking an evening jump into the "swimming hole" with our friends going to Bethel, AK.
For all those catholicgroovers out there, I got to sing at mass with a fantastically talented cluster of JV's, half of whom are going to alaska, so will be retreating with me through out the year. Molly (now in anchorage) and I improv-ed a groovin version of the psalm, so I'd say the catholicgroove spirit is continuing strong. :) Thank you all for the groovin y'all taught me-- I even played the egg with pizzaz :)

Some quality quotes from the week:

"We exist to give ourselves away"- Chris Beckman, Our United Villages, aka Rebuilding Center, portland Oregon.

"Hell is when we are all trying to feed ourselves, and heaven is when we feed eachother."- Dr. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer

"Catholic means 'Here comes everybody'"- Father Morris
"All things work for the good of those who believe- if you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, you've got the year licked." -Father Morris
"Forgiveness: giving up hope for a better past."- Father Morris (founding father of the JVC)

"Simplicty is freedom"- Sarah Kinsel

"Every 'yes' comes with a bunch of 'no.'"- Joseph and Marilyn duo
"Every moment is an opportunity for revelation"- Marilyn

"Alaska here we come! (shiver shiver)"- the sitka community after having jumped into the swimming hole together. It was soooo cold- I felt like my lungs were constricted. It was beautiful though, with a mini waterfall from the stream that fed the deep pool. :)

Legit in my Sitka Sneakers

Here's the view I wake up to every morning from my bedroom window.

Note the blue skies in the picture of the puget in my last post? So the one thing the Puget may have on Sitka sound might be sunshine.
The first five days of our stay here had two, count 'em, two sun sightings. One was a sun patch on a distant mountain spotted by Meg and Whitney on a walk through the harbor, and the second was a sun patch on Monastery street- Andrew spotted a tourist standing in the patch arms wide to take in the rays, with bystanders clapping. The rain isn't bothering me at all. I'm still excited about my new rain gear, and my Xtra Tufs, (aka, Sitka Sneakers).

These boots are admittedly not real lookers, but man are they functional. So far I have biked through the rain, waded in tide pools (see pic ->), waded out into skiffs and kayaks, taken strides into Salmon berry bushes, and walked through mud puddles and muddy trails. An interesting note for anyone who has seen the recent film, "into the wild," we think that the boots handed to the hero of are a pair of sitka sneakers. We're all hoping that is the end of the resemblance between him and us! :)

The best thing about Xtra Tufs is they are a ticket into the Sitka club. Just as a cute pair of Dr. Martin sandals were the key into Spring Forest Middle School society (remember that?), Xtra Tufs distinguish true Sitkans from cruise ship tourists. Xtra Tufs can also remind us of Uggs- when worn with shorts, my housemate Whitney attracted a little more attention than she wanted from the local fisherman and coast guard. Note to self....
The picture on the left is taken outside our front door, on Monastery street. That is Crescent Harbor, just 100 feet from our front door. To the left is the Russian Bishop's house, and the right is the Priest's House, both national monuments. Not bad neighbor's, really :)

Seattle : Sitka, AK :: Independence, MO : the Oregon Trail.

I'm here in Sitka, Alaska, and it is wonderful and beautiful and rainy and friendly and wonderful (yes, wonderful is worth repeating.) I'm currently sitting in our apartment's living area, giggling over the antics of my housemates cooking dinner. Andrew is using a Salvation Army-bought type writer (he didn't bring a computer) to type up a spice list cataloging our over flowing kitchen cabinets. Whitney and Meg are whipping up a cheesy chicken casserole and dealing with the controversy of cooking for our mixed vegetarian and meatetarian household. Andrew, the offending vegetarian, just slipped out to take a call and Meg snuck in and added Sporty Spice and Posh Spice, lemon grass and Coriander to the list (to cover her tracks). We've made bets on how long it will take for Andrew to notice.

I'd keep describing their shenanigans, except I wouldn't want to scandelize -- now Whitney and Meg are imitating fish related dance moves (ie the hook and reel in). I think this is their way of preparing for tomorrow's fishing trip with our new friend, Tyler, who is a Sitkan born and raised. I suspect Meg and Whitney a little riled up after Tyler's called us with an update: the island we're fishing at has had an "aggressive bear" sighting. He wants to know if we are still in- he certainly wasn't going to let the bear stop him. And this is in character, considering last night we met the two bear pelts of his massive pelt collection. Are they called pelts went they have the whole head and face, teeth and a fake tongue? Roaring out at you as you turn the corner from his kitchen to the living room? Hmm. Things to make sure to ask Tyler tomorrow... along with asking for more stories about his years as a sled dog handler in Fairbanks, and checking he brought his rifle to kill any 300 pound Halibut that might sink our little skiff... or now possibly shooting any aggressive, attacking brown bear. In the shoulder, so they can't run at you. See, I'm learning.

For those wanting to read more about the brown bear sitch: (Mom, please don't read this, it will only worry you. I really am safe, since I'm almost always with other boisterous twenty somethings giggling as loud or louder than I usually do). The more realistic scenario is being caught without a rifle, and in that case you stand your ground and yell salutations, for example "Ooooh Hey Bear" in an Alaskan accent. (similar to Canadian) My housemates have been practicing on each other, don't you worry. They are now bear experts after an hour long conversation with our new friend Patrick, who works at fish and game or something along those lines and had to skin the euthenized the brown bear that was recently hit by two cars on the road I bike to go to work. (Hrmmm. You're not supposed to run from a bear, but no one has given me a straight answer to the pertinent question, "can you bike from a bear?") Apparently there are a lot of brown bears by the Indian River this time of year, when the salmon 1) spawn, 2) jump like mexican jumping beans and then 3) die. The circle of life, just around the river bend.

Needless to say, for the past two weeks I have been away from internet, at orientation at a camp in Oregon, and now settling into Sitka accumulating blogworthy experiences. It has now gotten a little intimidating to sit down and try to do them justice. So, I'll do my best to do start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

ahem.

So as my title hints, I still had some gear to pack in my metaphorical wagon before I headed out to JVC orientation in Oregon. I went to the rain gear mecca, the original REI in Seattle with my rain experienced older bro. Got me some rain pants (named Taku, after an alaskan windstorm, nice), got me some weather-proof gloves, and a sweet rain jacket with a zip-out down liner. I've worn every piece of gear in my first 4 days here in Sitka. Scarily enough, this is the month with the best weather out of the whole year... hrm. More on the last essential piece of my Sitka wardrobe, Xtra Tufs in a later post. Those necessitate some good pics. :)

Another side effect of being in Seattle was hanging with my big bro, the infamous Steviedoober. I love Seattle, I love my brother, I love great food, I loved the blue angels airshow, I loved getting lots of time to practice guitar. It was good to get acclimated to the ... cooler than Houston weather, and to see my brother in his natural habitat of creative potluck gatherings and ice cream parties. I'll admit to rocking out to "If you wanna be my lover" on Sing Star, beating Stephen by two points on, btw :) The evening we saw fresh and funny improv, I snapped a photo of "Eileen's Court" (see the pic above with two red cars, it might not be legible) somewhere in the Broadway area of Seattle, I think. Another highlight included a rambling journey to the Seattle library via a closed freeway with the Wench herself.

Friday, August 1st I biked from my brothers apartment at Green lake to Sunset Hill. After getting confused by signs to dog parks and closed roads, I parked my bike and hiked down to the beautiful Golden Gardens beach. I wrote in my journal "I'm here at a park overlooking the Puget Sound.... I love all the boats, the blue water and sky, the clouded mountains... I does seem awfully big. I think I've already fallen in love with Sitka Sound." I don't want to give away too much, but the Puget has nothing on Sitka. Nothing.

Orientation

Though I doubt my new friends will greet me already knowing my name in Stanford RA fashion, it is with great excitement that I think about the reality that tomorrow I board a train heading for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps orientation in Portland, Oregon. Keep an eye out for my posts sent from Sitka, August 11th or 12th!