lutrian dreams

We're gaining over six minutes of daylight every day; our total is nearing seven hours in Fairbanks today. The sun is shining brightly, the sunrises and sunsets are gorgeous and have a noticeable beginning and end. In other words, they no longer blend together into a day-long phenomenon, which sounds amazing but means that the sun never rises fully above the horizon. As the sun rises and shines down on my cabin, I watch my thermometer creep up a couple of degrees. Soon the sun will be strong enough to warm life on the surface of this earth, here in Fairbanks. It's that time of year when we all start to feel spring fever. We have to remind each other that it's only nearly February, that cold snaps are likely right around the corner yet, that coats are still a necessity when walking farther than the outhouse. Still, it feels good, sun breathing life back into everything.

This past spring I moved into a cabin, in the sense of the term as it is used in Fairbanks. In other words, I moved into a house without running water and joined the community of cabin dwellers scattered throughout the larger Fairbanks populace. Being that this is my first winter in a dry cabin, I'm still largely getting my feet under me when it comes to the niceties that make daily life more efficient and more pleasant. I've been in my current dwelling for a little over a month, so I am also getting my feet under me in this locale during a time of year when everything is that much more difficult because of the extreme cold and the limited hours of daylight. Life in a dry cabin is so far from the suburban and urban life in which I grew up, the life I led before moving to Alaska. And it is so far from the lives of my friends Outside (and even some here in Alaska), I've been feeling inspired to document the interesting, the mundane, the difficult, and the surprisingly not-so-difficult aspects of my days.

I fired up my sauna for the first time two weeks ago, when a friend came over for some wine and a steam. At -10 Fahrenheit, it takes about two hours for the sauna to reach 130 degrees, perfect for a mid-length steam. The sauna is good sized, and the people who built this house and the sauna knew what they were doing. There is a drain in the floor, right next to the wood stove, and a bucket up above. A hose hangs down from the bucket, with a valve that turns the flow of water on and off, allowing for a gravity-fed shower of sorts. The heat from the stove is enough to keep one from feeling the chill of the winter air, despite the cool water trickling down from above. After my friend left, my first steam in my new sauna turned into my first sauna shower. I managed to wash and condition my hair and thoroughly soap up and wash off, using perhaps two gallons of water. It is surprising how clean I felt after the sauna shower, and I was impressed with how little water I had used. I have since fired up the sauna several times. It feels so cleansing to sweat out all of the toxins of the week; and combined with the good conversation of friends, a sauna during the Fairbanks winter can't be beat. I've steamed with friends to bring in Solstice and the New Year and enjoyed a rejuvenating sleep both nights.

I am finding that dry cabin life makes one part of a community to which locals living with running water don't have access. My gravity-fed sauna shower is a big perk of the cabin I live in, but sometimes I don't have two hours to stoke and tend the woodstove and get the sauna warm enough to stand wet and naked while I wash my hair and body. And sometimes, I desire the slightly higher water pressure that plumbing affords. I have joined the gym at the University, which gives me access to two locker rooms and the hot showers that go along with them. My morning routine, perhaps twice a week, includes getting ready for work in the company of perhaps a half-dozen other women. Is this what the great bath houses of ancient Greece and Rome must have been like? Like women in gym locker rooms anywhere, I am sure, we are careful to allow one another a sense of privacy. However one can still get a sense of the collective energy and attitude of the day, before people drink their coffee and put on their public face (and I don't mean in the sense of putting on make up). I've been realising with great interest that there is indeed a collective mood in this town. I wonder is it dictated by how cold the day is and whether the sun is out, whether it is slightly cloudy or Monday?

It is interesting to observe other women's morning routines. On particularly cold days, and perhaps some not-so-particularly-cold days, you can bet that several of the women you see running errands around town or sitting behind computers in their professional office buildings are wearing long underwear beneath their smart (and not-so-smart) business attire. There is something comforting in knowing that I am not the only one who feels like my pants are a little tighter when the thermometer reads -30F in town, that I am not the only one wearing lingerie that makes me feel extra feminine under my distinctly un-sexy woolies.

It's been a relatively mild winter in Fairbanks so far; but the day of the Fairbanks Christmas Bird Count was one of the coldest of the year at -38F. It seems that the coldest day almost always falls on the appointed CBC weekend. It takes dedication or a certain level of hardiness- both I think- to drag oneself out of bed on such a cold dark morning; dress in enough layers that you start to, at least mentally, resemble Randy Parker from A Christmas Story; and trundle out into air so frigid that exposed skin feels plasticized and breathing is painful. That or the promise of a thermos full of delicious hot toddy-like beverage and some very good company during the survey hours.

I cannot claim that dedication and hardiness were my main motivators, since I believe it was the warming company and rum mixed with ginger, nutmeg, honey, and lemon juice that drew me out of my warm cabin for the 49th Fairbanks CBC. I joined Brook and River for a very slow car-based survey of all of the side roads on Goldhill Road. It was a chilly drive indeed; this is one of the colder spots in town, and we had our windows rolled down for most of the drive so as to better see and hear our feathered friends. We started the count out with a hairy woodpecker, quickly followed by a small group of pine grosbeaks. We saw ravens and redpolls, and forty-five minutes into the count our first black-capped chickadees (one of the most common birds in Fairbanks). We totaled five species in the Goldhill area, and the reception that followed count day revealed twenty-four (I believe) for the Fairbanks area overall. Bird numbers in general were slightly down this year; the birds, perhaps displaying more sense than the counters, were laying low this chilly day.

I am sitting on the corner of Girouard and Monkland, sur la terrasse of the coffee shop that opened here six years ago. java u café is well established here in my old neighborhood, NDG. Some stores have come, some have gone; but the autumn sunshine and the sounds are much the same. Diesel buses, la Française du Québec, English with a francophone accent, conversations that mix French and English, les voitures qui passent... Even a friend calling my name, unexpectedly. On each corner, une boulangerie, une patisserie, une charcuterie. Un café avec le café. Sitting here, I am home. I have felt this week to be a homecoming of sorts since I arrived; or rather, since Arianne and Kevin pulled up at the curb at Dorval (now known as Trudeau). Since we spotted Alessia and Alex at Else's; et quand nous avons embrassé, Alessia dit-à-moi, "Welcome home," with a kiss on each cheek.

I have felt some sort of unexplainable connection to Montréal since leaving, sometimes manifested in dreams, sometimes in a surprise bit of French uttered from my mouth during conversation with non-French-speaking friends. Not having returned to cette belle ville in the six years that I have been away, the connection has been maintained as a form of nostalgia. I have been out of the loop- the comings and goings of life in Montréal have not included me. Most of my friends from university are no longer living in Montréal, having returned home to their respective provinces, states, and countries; or having relocated to Nova Scotia and Vancouver for school, Ottawa for jobs. An Alaskan friend of mine voiced a concern I didn't even know I had: was my fond remembrance of this place just that... nostalgia? Or did I still have a genuine connection to the city and the life I had led there?

My return did not feel imminent until I arrived in the Dallas airport from Austin, and found that half of the people at my gate spoke French with a thick Québec accent. I had wondered whether my French would come back to me; and at this point, I felt some concern because I could keep up with very little of the conversation around me at the busy gate. Some of the passengers could be clearly picked out as Québecois, even without my hearing any of their speech. Scarves, not as much for warmth as fashion, around the throats of the women, skinny jeans on the men, and lastly a definite lack of the UT orange gear that seems requisite to being a true Texan. I smiled to be returning to this city I had grown so fond of in the couple of years I spent there during school, picked up the novel I was reading (Nabakov's Ada or Ardour, complete with smatterings of slang French here and there in its pages), and put my headphones on my head, iPod tuned to Arcade Fire. Getting the feel for this place I was returning to, changing my mind set... not from Fairbanks, Alaska but from Austin, Texas. Preparations for a traveler with a currently confused sense of place!

And in almost no time at all, at least no time compared to the time I am used to traveling between place (Alaska) and destination (anywhere else), I was on the ground at Dorval. I soon whisked myself through customs, with all of the ease that entering Canada in non-holiday times affords someone with a United States passport. Both bags successfully off the baggage claim belt, some cash exchanged (really? fewer Canadian dollars than U.S. dollars handed over? I must head downtown to Ste. Catherine), I stepped out into the cool, crisp air. Aaaah. A relief from the stifling humidity and heat of Austin.

Arianne and Kevin, a good friend from University and her boyfriend (now husband) whom I had not seen in six years, pulled up at the curb within moments. I broke out in a grin: being greeted by the smiling faces of friends is so much more pleasant than taking a cab or navigating the transit system all the way from the airport to the city. And these familiar faces, even though now belonging to Vancouver and soon to San Francisco, spoke to me of Montréal. Their voices were just as I remembered, and so my trip began with the ease and grace of nostalgia realised in the still-familiar. We had plenty to say and plans for the evening. Kevin wove in and out of the fast-paced traffic; and I remembered the aggression of Québec drivers, as we, all three, wove our words together into a tapestry of conversation. Amidst the conversation, memories flooded back as we traveled through Notre Dame de Grâce (familiarly known as NDG) and across town, through the downtown area, and into Le Plateau in the north of Montréal. I wondered how my memories could be so vivid yet so fuzzy at the same time, as I traveled this route I had taken almost daily. I would find out later that some things in the city had certainly changed, especially the store fronts on St. Laurent; and this explained some of my muddled nostalgia.

We arrived at Le Plateau, and Kevin's good luck found us a parking space directly in front of Else's, a jazz/blues bar that was one of my old haunts while at McGill. We entered the long and narrow bar, which was much less crowded than in my memories and thus felt unfamiliar. Perhaps that was because no band was playing this night, but so much the better for real conversation. At the very back, hands and arms waving: Alessia and Alex, the bride and groom for whom we had all traveled across the continent.

Alessia had welcomed me home with the warmth of a Montreal greeting: a kiss on each cheek, which is so much more unassuming than a hug and so obviously warmer than a handshake. I have missed this custom and would love to institute this greeting amongst my circle of friends; but without the societal norm to back it up, it would likely only seem pretentious. Alessia, dear Alessia, remained unchanged but radiant. Familiar faces and familiarity in the menu made me quickly feel right at home. I ordered a Sleeman's and settled in for conversation with my four friends, remembering the email conversation in which she had informed me that she was dating Alex, whom yes! I remembered. He had helped me load my moving van to leave this city after University had ended, and Alessia had been there also. The two had met in my apartment in NDG.

from Alessia
to me
date Mon, Jul 9, 2007 at 7:42 AM
subject flashback

...The reason I am writing to you is because I thought you would appreciate this bit of news: Do you remember when we helped you move out of your NDG app. with Arianne and her friends? Well, as it turns out, I hooked up with Alex again all this time later and we are now dating. Who would have thought!

Anyway, just wanted to send you a flashback note about how the world works in mysterious ways;)

bisous,

alessia xx

From: me
To: Alessia
Subject: Re: flashback
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 11:42:05 -0800 (AKDT)

Ma cherie! That's fantastic! I owe you a letter tonight. I remember Alex was very good looking, yes?

from Alessia memboldenow@thelorax.us
date Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 6:40 AM
subject Re: flashback

and sweet, and funny and, and...

alessia xx

We stayed and talked until late into the night, as this would, both fortunately and unfortunately, be our one chance to catch up before the wedding itself. The next day, Alessia and Alex would leave on a honeymoon cruise. We left as the time neared 1 am, and I smiled to know that I would wake up in Montréal tomorrow; it would not be just a dream this time!

When you sit in the main terminal of SeaTac airport, sipping a wonderful cup of drip coffee and gazing out the window at the passing planes, it is easy to miss the gate switch announcement in the East terminal and the early boarding call for your flight to Austin. At least, that is exactly what happened to me. I arrived at my E gate just four minutes after my flight had left from another gate, but right on time for boarding had everything lined up as expected. Start of a long day.



According to the very friendly (and very helpful) Alaska Airlines Customer Service agent, this was the only Alaska Airlines flight leaving for Austin on this particular day. If I had not used Rewards Miles to book my ticket, I could have been switched over to a flight to Chicago, then caught an American Airlines flight to Austin at no charge. The ticket was cheap enough when I bought it, I agreed that that would have been a most convenient scenario. As it was, Alaska Airlines could get me to Houston. Could I get someone to pick me up there?



I was very close to turning around and boarding a flight back to Alaska. This was not how I wanted my vacation to start, especially with no sleep the night before. Feeling close to tears, hearing Anchorage and Fairbanks tossed around in the sentences of passing strangers made me slightly homesick.



"No one can pick me up in Houston. I need to get to Austin by tomorrow. Is there a commuter flight?"



Forty-five minutes after starting this conversation at the Customer Service counter and $165.00 later, I had a flight to Houston on Alaska Airlines, with a flight from Houston to Dallas and Dallas to Austin on a commuter airline. Arrival time: 11:30 pm Central time. No less than 21 hours after I arrived in the Fairbanks airport. It would be a long day, full of bad airport food and stale air. Thank goodness for reports to edit while waiting and Alaska-grown produce from Calypso Farm.