During my trip to Alaska, I carried with me a small notebook that I bought at the gift shop at the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on the first day of my trip. I’ll use those snippets of writing to tell a story of my trip. Not a comprehensive story, but a story of the moments I found most impactful or inspiring or difficult each day.
In the museum, I found myself drawn to a painting: six Alaska Native people (women, in my imagination) sit on a riverbank, their backs to me, wrapped in brightly colored blankets. The river is starting to melt, but still has a covering of ice chunks. The painting made me feel peaceful, as if I could join these women in their mindful sit.
Outside the museum, I sat at a table in awe and wonder at the vivid colors of nature all around me. The bluish white snowy mountains of the Alaska Range formed the horizon, looking almost like an extension of the fluffy white clouds and gray streaks of rain. Look at the storms out there compared to the clear blue skies near me. I felt big and small at the same time, as if the vastness of the landscape filled me up like a balloon while at the same time reminding me of how inconsequential my small little body is to the earth.
A family walking down a grassy hill caught my eye. When the parents called the kids’ names, I felt the spark of interest that tells me to write:
A kid named River
Shirtless
No, carrying his shirt.
A girl named Sky.
The horizon line
Green treetops
Blue, blue, blue
Spotted with
Fluffy white clouds
Darker on the horizon
Sheets of gray
Clouds to white peaks.