IX. Becoming an Alaskan

IX. Becoming an Alaskan

Meanwhile,  Alaska was working a change in me.  It's hard to explain, but many people say the same thing--that Alaska changes them, and they don't know how.  Personally, I'd think it is the magnetism.  The electricity is extremely funny  up here.  It comes and goes, it cuts out, it flows back, electrical appliances suddenly stop working, then spring back to life for no apparent reason.  It is very difficult to operate electronic equipment, musical equipment, because there's so much  static electricity, that you can short out an electric piano just by walking 2 ft. away from it and walking back and touching it; in a single chorus class I will have to reboot the piano maybe 15 times.  The light board of the high school can freak out just by someone walking past the  booth and touching the wall through three feet of plasterboard. 

The first week I lived here, I noticed my dreams becoming longer and more vivid.  When I attempted meditation, I noticed my attention was more easily held, and inner images were clearer, more illuminated by a white glow. My younger son visited me in October, and he  noticed the exact same thing.  I've mentioned this phenomenon of the electricity to other people, assuming they will think I'm cray, or eccentric, but, no, everybody gets it, everybody can feel it, even people who have lived here all their lives.  I am sure this effect is more intense in the winter, which coincides with the appearance of the aurora borealis.  Go figure.  We are, after all, just a few hundred miles from the North Pole, at the top of the earth, and the land where the clocks have no meaning, the sun is a stranger for half the year and a constant companion for the other half. The following is an excerpt from a family update letter I wrote around Christmas:

“The most important change I would like to comment on is the magic that Alaska has worked in me: I can with some degree of confidence claim that I am not the same man who drove 2000 miles through Canada to get here. There is something about the electricity here: 

forget the magnificent views, on all sides, of dense forest, high mountains, rivers, lakes, wildlife; forget the ice-patched road (note I do not say road(s)) that winds through infinity stretched in every direction, without another car to be seen for miles, for hours; forget the moose tracks in the snow a half mile from my house, forget the Bear River spinning fish wheels, surging over white rocks in the twilight of 3:00 PM; 

it is the electricity here that has changed me. There is a lot of static electricity everywhere, because the air is so dry--electronic equipment is forever shorting out, blue sparks fly from my fingers in every darkened hallway--but I think there is something else, too. 

There is a feeling that I am closer to my subconscious, closer to the body electric which is my truer self. I always thought the air was rarified in Idaho, high above the soggy sea breezes of Santa Cruz--but here the air seems positively alive, crackling with consciousness, probing my inner mind. Tina, Ambrose, and I all commented immediately on the quality of dreams here--much more vivid, intense, memorable--an effect that has persisted to this day; both Ambrose and I, and Tina and I, shared at least one dream during their visits here, and I wouldn't be surprised if that became a regular occurrence when Tina finally makes it up here. 

Weaknesses that have plagued me my whole life (hypersensitivity to criticism, low-profile prestige, etc., over-reaction to everyday traumas like traffic or neighborhood dogs) have diminished into insignificance in light of my revitalized sense of my essential self. I'm not saying I don't still have some bad habits, but I can honestly say I feel that many of my worst ones are melting away even as we speak. There is a no-nonsense quality to this place that is more than a cultural attitude--it is an up-frontness to life that makes the trivialities of petty ego seem so ridiculous that most of the people up here have ceased to think about them--they do their thing without complexity of guilt or paradox. 

I'm not saying that my personality changed because of static electricity, but the presence of a heightened level of psychic awareness, I believe, created a predisposition for other changes that the people of Alaska worked in  me.  

The people in Bear Creek are not exactly what you would call open-minded, in spite of the rep that Alaska has for rugged individualism, that "Leave me alone to do my own thing and I'll let you do yours," kind of thing. No, there are plenty of assholes up here— in fact, in certain areas, there are a preponderance of assholes--but the fact is that they are really, really good at being assholes, primarily because they have given a lot of thought to being assholes and proclaim their right to assholedom from the top of Mount Drum with such conviction, it is hard to begrudge them their asshole rights. This may be where the attitude comes from that Alaska is permissive, or accepting of the pioneer spirit--there is room enough for every asshole who comes up here, each with his own stentorian peak to propagandize from. People claim the right to narrow artistic or political attitudes, and they don't want ANY perverse ideas corrupting their children, but there is never any question of proseletyzing, converting the heathen--everybody is encouraged to go home to their own private mountain top to be whoever they want to be.

 Another diary piece I wrote around this time goes like this:

                Realization—Mistaken Identity

I have been misinterpreting a feeling.  The intense feeling of sadness I have lately experienced very often,  is not sadness for what I thought it was.  I thought it was my job, my poverty, and my professional failure that were making me sad,  but I now think that the sadness is an aspect of a stage of growth—I think my maturing knowledge of spiritual reality is having a direct affect on my physical reality again; it's the first time in a long time. The feeling of sadness, the feeling of disconnectedness from some sort of joy, an indistinct memory of something that ought to be there but isn't, is simply the awareness of the ultimate ontological dilemma of life on earth, here we are. The  dilemma is not only that "this place sucks", it is that an enhanced appreciation/experience of "Now" leads us to an apprehension of the false nature of time—that we're not moving forward but that we exist in an eternally suspended moment. This fixity is somehow strong and comforting, but its magnificent emptiness is sobering and we mistake this sober feeling for sadness. 

Today I rejoice because I have begun to achieve some objectivity about the feelings that I have. They should not be as intense as they are, and I believe that if I can truly  recognize the realities behind the symbols, the biggest problem living on earth, dealing with the misdirection God puts in his midterm exams, I will feel better about my life and will stop being the prey of elementals sucking out my life force.

 A key moment in the evolution of my new self came about as a consequence  of the Bear Creek Elementary School Christmas Program.  We had a meeting around the beginning of December to discuss the traditional Christmas Program put on by the elementary school.  After about 10 minutes, it became apparent to me that I was the Christmas program, and this meeting was just an excuse to impose bureaucratic control over me.  So I told everybody what I had to show, and asked for suggestions from the other people about presentations there class's could make; nobody had much to offer.  I said, "Why don't we put on a little play?  A reading? Some little theatrical thing?" Well, the principal said, those things never work, the kids never speak loud enough, etc., etc. I said OK, and walked out of there thinking, again, how small minded people could be.  

That night, it came to me in a rush of inspiration, how we could tell the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer story in a cute little musical format that would be easy to put on, and would add a lot to the program, which, although there was a lot of nice music, was kind of boring.  I wrote the entire play, including four nice, short little songs,  in about two days.  The children, and the teachers, were very excited about the project, and a cast of about 10 committed to after-school rehearsals for three weeks.  About a week into the project, I was called into the principal's office; he had some concerns about the language.  There is one spot where Rudolph, depressed about being rejected by the other reindeer says, " I wish I could go off and hide in a cave somewhere, and never come back, and die, die, and die. And if that didn't make me feel better, I would pout and cry. " It was a cute little gag, a n ice rhyme and I could see no offense in it; but the principal couldn't deal with a kid onstage saying he would like to die, die, die.

I walked out of his office, and down the hall, fuming about the small minded people, they had no right to mess with my work, I'm gonna get out of this dumb place, go back home where I'm appreciated.  .  .  and so on, for about 30 seconds.  Then came to me in a flash, but I was talking about throwing away my whole new life because of a dumb play.  I was able to say to myself at that moment, that it doesn't matter; and somehow, for the first time in my life, I really meant it.   I was suddenly grateful to the small minded people were showing me how much it was possible to care for their children, and for giving my massive ego a chance to dissolve in a corporate agreement.  I realized in that moment that there were many, many components of my social self that were simply NOT the essential aspects of character I had thought them to be; they were, in fact, mere emanations of ego which could be slipped out of like the scales of a snake, leaving me richer and freer, not impoverished and enchained. 

Now,  how come, you ask, if I could see so clearly immense cataracts falling from my eyes over a little play, why couldn't I see my own wife dying in a pit of hell? I don't know.  I am at a loss.  I am humiliated.  I am desolated.  You have to remember that I am no good on the phone.  You have to remember that I was lied to, and was operating on  a false impression of what was going on in San Jose.  Those would be excuses that might supply supporting arguments that a court of law, but which would not be conclusive.  I think my only real defense is time: when a realization hits you it implants in your mind the possibility of change, but the reality of change takes time and action. Remember that this Rudolph realization was taking place at the exact same moment that Tina was contemplating suicide; and the changes in me which could have resulted in altered behavior in Bear Creek, were still compromised by long years of marital dysfunction, distance, deception, and, yes, weakness.  Yes, the timing is all, or as Hamlet says, "The readiness is all." With everything I was going through, building our new home, our new life,   I was simply not prepared for the possibility that Tina, or, for that matter God, was willing to come in and fuck up the realization of our great dream, just as it was happening up there on the mountainous roads of the promised land.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.