So the big adventure has been over for a couple weeks now; slowly the ache is melting, and slowly I'm getting accustomed once more to being where I am. And it's not a bad place to be, really, even if the heat and humidity here have lately been making our digital weather amusement center go haywire and reset itself every couple of days, and have made me long for being in a place where in July it's in the 60s and occasional 70s and things are bright and pleasant, and if you want cooler you can always climb higher.
Even with all this, and even with the healing that's gone on, and even as the sweet little aches recede into the realities of life, I keep coming back to the question: What part does Alaska play in my life? More to the point, what part should it play? My friend told me a week or so ago that he half expects me to inform him before too long that I'm coming up for an extended stay that becomes more than just a research trip. As much as I chuckled with recognition, I know that's not likely to happen.
Oh, there are reasons, and I've gone over the more practical ones: the good job I have here, the family I have here, the home we've built, adjusting to a different climate (which, as much as I sometimes really hate the climate here, it's at least climate I've lived with most all my life, so I know how to deal with it). There's the turmoil it would cause. There's the pain of moving. There's a spouse I have to think about. There's my feeling that moving to Alaska just to do the same kind of work I do here would be kind of pointless. There's a list of practical reasons as long as your arm against it.
But there's one very good reason I probably won't make the move, and I haven't shared this with anyone.
One of my favorite movies of all time, one I'd put on the proverbial desert island list, is Mister Roberts. I love it for way too many reasons to list. But, in this case, I think of it as a cautionary tale. Roberts wants nothing more than to be transferred from his sleepy duty aboard a cargo ship; he wants to go where the action is, transferred to a combatant vessel. The end of the war is coming, and he can't get to the action, and it frustrates him. Finally, he gets his wish and is posted to a destroyer off Okinawa...where he's killed, drinking coffee in the wardroom, in a kamikaze attack.
That came to mind the other day when I was thinking about how I'm sitting here some days, thinking about those distant mountains and those bush planes, and it's just like Roberts in the opening titles of the movie, standing on the foc's'le and watching the task force slink by in the distance, imagining himself on the bridge of a carrier or a battlewagon headed for the waters off Japan. Roberts wanted it, and it cost him his life. And, as much as it kind of freaks me to say it, I can see the fulfillment of my dream of Alaska costing me mine.
It's because I see Alaska in much the same way I look at an airplane like an MU-2. The MU-2 is a marvelous airplane. But get behind the airplane while you're flying it, and it will kill you just like that. It has happened many times. You have to know exactly what you're doing, maintain complete awareness of what the airplane is doing, and you need to be trained and proficient and competent. It takes time and training and skill and good judgment, because inattentiveness, carelessness or other lapses in an MU-2 will kill you a lot faster than in many other aircraft.
And I can completely see this happening. Let's say the stars do align somehow and I move to Alaska and I fulfill this wild dream of owning a little airplane, flying out to these remote areas. I can easily see me getting just a little bit careless one day and smacking into a mountain. Or say I go out for a nature hike one day and I fail to see that I'm between mama moose and her baby. Or, just as easily, that I have an encounter with a bear that doesn't end well. Or I'm driving to work one day on a snowy road and lose control of my vehicle and plunge off something, or swerve to miss a moose and end up losing an argument with gravity. Or I go hiking and climb on the edge of something, and the ground beneath my feet turns out not to be quite as firm as I originally gauged, and it's two hundred feet down from there. The list goes on.
Could I survive there? Yes, as years pass, I would probably build the skills I needed, become wise to my environment, and do other things to mitigate the risks. I already play it safe, and I'd build on that. If I did join the ranks of the airplane owners up there, I'd take all the training I could, fly as much as I could, and generally try to stay wise and proficient (and if I couldn't afford to do all that, I just wouldn't fly). And, I mean, it's not like I haven't learned how to adapt to strange new environments before (South Florida has its own hazards, and yet I survived there and adapted pretty well), and it's not like the place I live now doesn't have its risks -- there's snakes, deer darting in front of your car, angry bees, bobcats and other wild creatures that can get rabid and tear into you, and that's just the wildlife hazards. But those, at least, I've become savvy about. I know this because I've lived most all my life knowing certain things. I know there are certain times of the year I don't go into our woods without watching my step very carefully and keeping my .38 in my back pocket in case I have a rendezvous with a copperhead. I know the things to avoid. I know the ways to protect myself here.
And, over time, I'd learn how there. I know I would, and I know I'd build a certain level of competence in being out and about. But I'd have to approach it with a lot of care, and I'd have to give it time. I would need to give myself time to build the kind of intelligence I'd need to survive. I know I could do it. But I'm also aware of how much I don't know, and it's what I don't know that could really bite me, especially early on. Or, even, what could bite me after I've had years and years of experience, just like what almost happened to me a few months ago.
No matter where you go or what you do, there are risks. Heck, I could walk out the door of my office tomorrow, cross the street and get hit by a bread truck (or ambulance, since I like the conceptual versions of such things to have elements of farce to them). But something about being up there this time, and seeing more of it and being reminded of its power, has reminded me that with great beauty comes potential danger. It's not fear that I have of this wild, strange, wonderful place called Alaska. No, it's more like respect, and being reminded of just how much respect you need to have to avoid grief there, and that you need to keep your mind in the game when you're out and about.
Like that MU-2, Alaska offers great reward. But, if you're not careful and you let yourself fall behind, it'll bite you.