Hothooine

We've been in Bethel for two months now and I am daily inspired by the people, the culture and the landscape that is Bush Alaska. However, I am also beginning to realize that living here is akin to living on the ill-begotten love-child of the planets Tatooine AND Hoth from the original Star Wars trilogy.

First of all, we're remote. I mean WAY remote. Like Tatooine AND Hoth remote. As Luke said about Tatooine in A New Hope, "Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's furthest from." This seems to describe Bethel far too well. Bethel is off the road system, meaning the only way to get anywhere from here is by airplane or boat. Technically, right now the Kuskokwim River currently serves as an ice road to other places more remote than Bethel, which seems to counter my point, although being more remote than here may actually require a new word to be defined.

I do find it interesting that a locations remoteness has actually been studied. Curiously, the place furthest from any sea is, appropriately enough, called the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility. It is 1553 miles from any ocean and is uninhabited. Coincidentally, Point Nemo is the furthest point from any land mass, also falling 1553 miles from the nearest lad form.

The most inhabited remote place is an island called Tristan da Cunha. It's a whopping 1242 miles from St. Helena and over 1700 miles from the nearest mainland. They only get mail once per year! How insanely nuts is that?

Bethel's Hoth comparison is pretty obvious given our climate, but it's worth mentioning. I find it amazing how NOT cold -30 is until the wind blows, when I find it equally as amazing at how unbelievably cold -30 is. Of course, it's interesting how quickly our acclimation to temperature changes as well. We had weeks of sub-zero temperatures and now we've nosed into the plus category and I'm overwhelmed by how hot it seems. T-shirt weather is now +15!

Okay, maybe Bethel isn't as remote as some other places, but we're close!

Sign Language

Arguably the most difficult thing about living up here is deciphering the language barriers that exist between all the different cultures that have chosen to make Bethel home. Certainly, most of us have heard some version of how many words the Inuit's have for snow (which may or may not have merit, since I wouldn't consider "tliyel" or "snow that has been marked by wolf" a different kind of snow. I'd call that "yellow snow" and I'd advise my kids not to eat it...but I digress...as per usual), but nobody prepared me for what many of the Yup'iks and Cup'iks use for communication. It has taken me two months to realize that when I ask a "yes or no" question, if the answer is merely a raise of the eyebrows, it means "yes". For "no", they'll probably just stare at you.

What's even more amusing is when one of them are pissed at you. My kids have all perfected what we call "angry eyes", but the few times I've managed to piss off a student at school, I get "active angry eyes". This is when they will rapidly give you "yes" and "no" eyebrow responses until you get the point. Watch out. I'm not sure what exactly they are saying when they do this, but I can assure you it looks like as they are using every foul-mouthed work in the book. Now if only they'd teach me how to cuss like that!

Abyss

We watched Garden State again last night. I haven't seen it for a couple of years and it was just as enjoyable this time. A couple of things...

1. Being up here in Alaska feels suspiciously like living on the edge of that underground cavern they visit. I'm inspired to get out and explore this infinite abyss, although I think I'm going to have to wait until temperatures rise above 0-degrees. I'm guessing I'm also going to have to get some kind of protection up here after reading about the teacher that was attacked and killed by a pack of wolves.

2. The soundtrack of that movie is phenomenal. Love The Shins, Colin Hay (Former lead singer of Men at Work), Iron and Wine, Cary Brothers, Nick Drake...the entire soundtrack. I've been listening to a lot of Colin's solo work lately...well worth a listen!

3. Finally, some days I feel like I spent my whole childhood drugged, although without the pill popping. The similarities between the protagonists' childhood and mine are completely different, but I can't help recognize that much of mine is a fog as well.

Curious how the mind works, isn't it. Every once in awhile, I'll recollect a new memory from my youth and my wife and I will chuckle because once after my remembering something from childhood she said (in front of my mother no less), "Gee, honey, you do have childhood memories!"

I'm certain, just like the protagonist in Garden State, I could use some therapy, but now Blue Cross/Blue Shield just stopped being a preferred provider up here in Bethel, so I'm pretty well stuck without any local health care, let alone therapy, although I have no desire to still have no memories or feelings but also to be medicated simultaneously.

I guess more of the same is the answer. Maybe I should watch the movie again...

Taking February Off...

February is gone and now March is nearly half over. I managed exactly zero posts for the month of February, for which I am having a difficult time justifying to myself except to say that February has always been my least favorite month. I suspect it's simply because I never understood the need for the 28-day month thing. Seems like there could have been more equity when putting the calendar together. It seems to me that February could've stolen a day from January or March without much consequence to them and we still could've kept the whole leap year thing going. Curiously, I do understand the concept of leap year and the addition of a day to make up for the fact that our actual length of day is slightly longer than the 24 hours we use. Of course, thanks to the recent earthquake in Chile, our days are now 1.26 microseconds shorter. Now what am I going to do?

Anyway, I fondly remember time creeping by when I was young and now that I'm an adult and could possibly consciously enjoy or, at the very least, appreciate time, it races by with hardly a memory to recollect. Alas...

Yet again, I'm trying to justify not posting and make promises that I'll post more frequently. Here's hoping!