If ever I would leave you...

It's time.

I’ve waited a long time to write this post.  I had legitimate reasons—the chaos of moving, transplanting and cultivating the kids in a new place, supporting Rick as he settles into the nightmarish rollercoaster of an 18 month clinical doctorate.  I had less legitimate reasons—I’m too lazy to make time to write, and sometimes I’d rather just stare mindlessly at my phone because scrolling is easier than thinking. 

Then there are the real reasons.  It hurts.  Looking back at pictures, at people, at experiences—it’s an acute reminder that I’m not home anymore.  I missed the gray summer nights, the first playful nips of winter as the mornings shade into fall, the mountains blushing with fireweed.  I miss the solitude of the river and the beavers slapping the water and the quiet of the first snow. I miss the hours, golden and otherwise, spent with people who became family at the top of the world.  I didn’t want to write this post because it would be the last about Alaska, and it would make leaving real.

I remember the first time it really hit home. During the manic weeks of packing, planning, paperwork and then the stressful race through Canada, I had been much too busy to register much of anything.  It wasn’t until we had made it to the lower 48 and stopped for a breather in Utah that it finally hit home.  I was on the porch of our Air BnB looking at the sky, which seemed unnaturally dark for a May evening.  Something looked off.  Then I realized why—the stars were too low.  For the last four and half years, the north star had sat nearly directly overhead, crowning the sky, with the Big Dipper dancing around it like the hand of a celestial clock.  Now Polaris hovered only a third of the way up the sky, and the Dipper barely broke the horizon.

I cried.

That might sound strange for someone who spent literally her entire life moving.  Before I was 9, I had moved 6 times.  As of this writing, I have moved 13 times since I was 19. Different homes, different friends, different climates. Starting over again was challenging, especially as our family grew, but it was always a new adventure. I enjoyed every place we lived for various reasons, but I never missed them when we left.

Now I can’t seem to stop looking back.

Our time in Alaska ended as it began--in a three bedroom, two-story beige townhouse on Eielson Air Force Base, a moose roaming near the front gate and an expectation of snow.  When we arrived, it had been that awkward period between the leaves falling and the first snow; when we left, it was the similarly colorless period between the snow melting and green-up.  It was fitting to once more be on the cusp of transition in more ways than one.

So many things held to the last.  My last evening walks showed me foxen and beaver, the sun was haloed with sun dogs, and the aurora, which usually flickers out by mid-April as the night shortens, flared until the beginning of May.

As if that wasn't hard enough, I had to leave family--not blood, but these women might as well have been.  We'd watched each other's kids, shared holidays, campfires, dinners, deployments. We'd given midnight rides from the airport and chased auroras and butchered moose and rafted down the Chena under the midnight sun. At the far end of the world these women became my sisters, including several whose friendship helped me heal in ways I didn't think I could.

The night before we drove out, a friend generously opened their home for one last night together.  She had tapped her birch trees for a special treat--fresh sap, strained and chilled. It was a bittersweet evening of memories and well-wishes and hugs around the firepit as car-sized chunks of ice drifted lazily down the river. The tears started as we loaded into the van and waved goodbye to our friends for the final time.  For the girls, this had been the longest home they had ever known; for several of them, it was the only home they remembered.

I don't want to be one of those people who romanticize and constantly reference a place, comparing it to wherever they might be instead of embracing the new location. It's just as annoying as those people who only complain about where they live.  I've moved enough to know that nowhere is perfect; I've also moved enough to know there is a little bit of magic everywhere, if you're willing to look for it.  If you're lucky, you'll manage to find a place that makes your heart sing, that feels like coming home and going on an adventure at the same time.  And if you're really, truly blessed, you get to stay.  

Thank you, Alaska, for four and a half years of magic.   It’s been a slice.