Amigos, Perros, Playas, y Nieve

The weather has been beautiful and blustery this month, with some spectacular sunsets!  The other night I took the dogs to the beach for a walk and the waves coming in were perfect – a handful of folks were out surfing on the point.

In land-based news, ski season is upon us! Yeah!  It was great to get out for early-season skiing, even if it was on an inch of snow over the frozen reservoir. 

Katie, Blaine & I headed up there the weekend before Thanksgiving:

There wasn’t enough snow on Bridge Creek to ski up it, so we de-skied and walked up aways.

I have so many of these ridiculous self-portraits. 

Thanksgiving!  I love Thanksgiving.  Ben graciously gave in to my love of cooking and eating and friends and family and we hosted Tday again this year at the house.  We got up at 9AM and cooked and cooked and cooked, cleaned a little, cooked some more.  Oh, and Ben decided he needed to hem two pairs of his pants. 

 

Mike took a little while waking up….

  

Megan and Steve were wonderful company, along with Steve, Susie, Charlie, Debbie, Elias, and Mikey.  And, of course, Kaya, Pemba, and LE.  I took precious few pictures, but enjoyed the day and the evening thoroughly.  Many thanks and deep appreciation.

We’re heading to Mexico next week, after a week of work, hopefully some more skiing, and trip-prep.  Then a weekend in Anchorage for work, a couple of days in Seattle, then SOUTH! 

Hasta pronto, mis amigos.

Visiting Winter.

October was a really long month.  I don’t mean to say that it was a bad month, indeed just the opposite!  I was able to travel to Seattle and to Kodiak, Alaska – both for work.  Though I have developed a strong fear of the small planes that get me out of Homer, I still love to be on the go – I love airports and the entire feeling of traveling and transit.  However, at the end of it all (especially having just come off of Cross Country season with State on October 2) I was tired.  Tired and looking out my office window at bluebird skies and crisp fall-winter transition days.  Too beautiful for idle contemplation – I made reservations for a US Forest Service cabin in the Chugach Mountains, at the Crescent Lake Saddle Cabin.  Ben, me, Kaya, and Pemba headed out on Saturday morning….after Ben did some last-minute excavating.

   

I manage to always get a lot of pictures of Ben walking in front of me, generally with dogs. 

So I have to take pictures of myself every now and again…just to show I Was There!

Kaya and Pemba enjoying a small shrub-toy outside of the cabin

Ben, playing with my new-ish stove.   The giant flames terrify me.  Must.Be.Calm.  Ben is very assured that we will not burn down the sweet cabin, but I’m not always so sure.   He’s generally correct, and the stove is a *much* faster way than the woodstove to get hot coffee in the morning .

The woodstove, however, keeps us warm.  And Pemba warm.  Which is very important.  This small little black dog may not be the toughest, not that Ben hasn’t tried to harden her throughout life.  Come to find out she’s VERY restless if she only has a cold hard floor, not  her couch to sleep on….

And below is a small sampling of my photo shoots.  The weather was incredible – some snow on Sunday morning, blue skies, frosty crisp air.  The mountains were snow-covered, rocks starkly outlined by their white counterparts…I was often struck still by the beauty & immensity.  Sometimes I think one can get too wrapped up in their own personal world.  However, when push comes to shove, there is so much more out there – more sorrow, more beauty, more depth and brilliance than one individual can truly pull all in and grasp.  Which is fabulous – it’s all out there, the exquisite and the sorrowful, to lend and learn wisdom, experience, compassion, etc etc etc etc…..

   

Happy Winter, everyone!  May you embrace and enjoy the still cold beauty of it, in whatever way you experience this life.

A Quick August Re-cap

I'll be brief on August ... on the 3rd, the Homer High School Cross Country Running Team began practice.  With me as head coach ... naively embarking upon a second job that has taken a phenomenal amount of time & brain-space.  Ben has been incredibly patient in listening to me talk about 17 high school students waaaaay more than anyone should have to listen to.  That being said, it's been a fun adventure, we have Regions this weekend, States next weekend, and another season has come and gone.  8 Weeks, I can hardly complain.

 

August is the Gibson Family month.  Ben's sister and family come to Homer for the month, along with other sisters, neices/nephews, aunts/uncles, family friends, etc etc.  While Sam and the kids (the England-family) were staying at the house, Ben, Kaya, Shaemus, Pemba, and I stayed at Charlie, Debbie, and Elias' (aunt, uncle, & cousin) cabin-by-the-sea.

This is the only real picture I took during our tenure at the cabin.  I was sitting on the bed at the time, so all at once you can get a sense of how lovely and sweet and small this space was.  The beach was just outside the window, and Shaemus fully enjoyed sitting on the top of the hill, watching the people and crows and other dogs meandering below. 

Also in August, Ben & Josiah tried their hands at set-netting.  There is a personal use fishery in Kachemak Bay for silver salmon.  The openings are 48 hours, and you hang a gill net that you hope fishes will swim into.  More or less, this is the idea.

The net, with a buoy at each end and floats along the length.

A few salmon were caught, although I'm not entirely sure it would classify as the "bloodbath" that I was assured would ensue....

Next time, next time...

To wrap August up, Chris came down before heading back south to Maine to pick up Shaemus and visit.  Coincidentally, he arrived for my birthday!  We loaded up the boat with dogs, Blaine, Katie, Ben, Chris, & I, food and beer, and headed across the Bay to the head of Tutka Bay for some first-class bushwacking up a beautiful valley.

The boys tried to lend a hand to Katie for a river-crossing..

Rainforest-y, wet, sunny, thorny Across The Bay.  Loved It.

All Points North

On July 9th, Ben and I headed North to Fairbanks for Blaine and Katie's wedding. We took a week to drive nearly 1,600 miles to not only attend one of the best weddings I've been to, but also to take in the Interior and drive back via the Richardson and Denali highways.


We stopped at Tern Lake to make lunch sandwiches on the way from Homer on Day 1. That night we camped on the banks of the Susitna River, just below the Parks Hwy bridge, north of Talkeetna.
I only took 2 pictures at the wedding. It was so much more fun to be sitting there and participating and taking it in than trying to record it all... Katie and Blaine both looked beautiful, and the par-tay afterwards at the Mushers Hall was a damn good time.
I was honored to be asked by Katie & Blaine to start off the wedding ceremony with a reading, The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

I was surprised by how nervous I was after I began - apparently you couldn't hear my voice shaking, but I was so overwhelmed by what I was saying, the people before me, the marriage of these two who I love so dearly....I could feel my voice and my hands and my throat and legs all shaking.

Some photos from our trip home, along the Denali Highway...and then stopping in Houston to buy Charlie $50 worth of "pretty fireworks". It was fairly priceless to watch Ben ask the fireworks selling girl which ones were "the pretty ones".


Lots of time was spent assessing the landscape and the Gazetteer...heaps of great trips abound! So exciting, in fact, that I went and bought myself an Alpaca Packraft when we got home...