The essay below was the first essay I sent out in hopes of publication. Not only did it get published it got me a little gig writing a column for our local paper. I'll always love this essay yet, this winter is proving to be a whole different experience. I've come to terms with this northern place in ways I used to only dream about.
Still this is my champion piece. Enjoy.
Fireweed makes me sick. Its flowing carpets of vibrant purple and green slap me in the face with the reality that summer will end, fall is coming and so is the dark. Each summer I forgive this place, Homer, Alaska. Each summer I fall in love all over again.
Like a marriage with inevitable rough spots, I enjoy the good times and wait for signs the rough spots are coming. My bad fireweed mood lasts a week or so. Then, the long days, still present, caress my mood away. The joyous work of raspberries to pick and salmon to smoke cast my fears aside and keep me in the quick morsel of summer.
Summer gives us a permission slip to explore heaven; we are free. Escaping becomes a viable option, even with three kids in tow. Time changes. Instead of clocks watched, they are forgotten. Hours go by in the raspberry patch with a little bit of time spent picking berries, even in the rain. Mothers and kids meet at the park for a morning play group that turns into afternoon. Just being home feels relaxing. Bikes adorn the lawn. Rocks must be collected to create a floor, other than mud, under the outdoor faucet. Water feels a little bit safer. The pushki smells almost indescribable, like celery, a bit of pungent earth, sweet yet acidic. Sometimes, when the cow parsnip is hip high, I move slowly, the air made dense with pushki incense. Ah, summer.
Unlike a marriage, the rough spots of each season are predictable and run like clockwork. Each fall the tension builds. I make plans to travel to places I know I won't go, can't afford. Still, I plan a trip each year. One year I didn't make it past the dump all winter long. Motherhood makes hunkering down all too easy.
It is said the dark is cumulative, and I agree. But so is the false hope, the high from the summer. Each summer is so damn good you get lulled into thinking this winter won't be so damn bad. October is tolerable, more anticipatory fear than anything else. By November, flu season has run amok and consumed at least six weeks of family life. Holidays provide a distraction and all of fall is called potluck season for a reason.
Then, the shortest day comes — five hours and 55 minutes. A twinge of hope. This is the worst, right? Nope, January comes without holidays and people start to return from the trips they can afford, all tanned and talkative. Sometimes they leave twice. February, even in Michigan we called it "frickin', freezin' February." By March, well, my marriage sucks, the kids are certainly troubled and maybe even disabled, any hope I had of a dashing career is dashed, I have slipped on the ice twice, I have devised seven different strategies for moving out of Alaska to someplace warm and all seems lost.
And then, just when I feel a little too crazy, pent up and scared, spring comes. Each spring, each day with one more hour of light, my anger begins to thaw. My despair lightens, and my husband gets better looking. By May, my kids are at least normal. By June, they are talented. In July and August I can be anything I dream up. And it all begins again.
This place has crept beneath my skin and become part of me — who I am. Since it is just August, a few more juicy days left, I believe this: Homer is the most beautiful place on earth and some day I will be a famous writer.
