Hot Off The Press

I cried upon touchdown and I cried upon departure.

My trip to Alaska was far too short but it was also just the right amount of time.

Aside from bringing some of that California sunshine with me, when I landed in Kenai, Alaskan mountain ranges displaying an unreal backdrop behind me, it felt like my life in California was a far and distant dream.

I soaked in every moment to the fullest, appreciating the beauty and opportunity to be able to come back home and visit like this, to step away and gain some wise perspective on my life, and yet when the time came for me to leave again, I found my strength wavering and my tears beginning to burst.

I wasn’t brave! I cried like a fool and my heart felt like the two pound sinker on it’s way down to the bottom of Prince William Sound, lost in the current of the sea.

I hugged my cat as her fur became wet with my tears, looking around at my room imprinted with scraps and memories of who I was, who I longed to be again, and tried to remain cool and tear free around my mom and dad.

I asked my mom through heaving tears why it was so hard to leave, why I wasn’t a brave adult like the rest of them and once again, Mom replied with the simplicity and wiseness I needed:

It’s hard to leave a place where you’re loved.

And that explained everything.

Home isn’t just “home” for me, it’s this special place that I haven’t entirely appreciated until I learned the value and importance of blooming where I was planted.

For so long, I was so focused on getting out there and pursuing my magazine in a big city without really taking the time to research opportunity where I was.

See, on my last day in Alaska, I was in 602 talking to our new chef for Addie Camp, Maya Wilson, who got started on a food blog and currently has a published cookbook. I was telling her about my unsuccesses in the Bay area with my magazine and having trouble finding the time to get it off the ground when she told me:

Oh, well I have people here you could talk to. I’ve got a publisher, I started my career on a blog. I could help.

So I’m telling my mom this in one of the booths and this woman behind her excuses herself for interrupting, but she heard the word “magazine”, perked up and had to introduce herself.

As a veteran in the publishing industry, this woman used to work for Hearst Publishing in New York City and was a wealth of knowledge. I only had a moment to chat, but we exchanged information and she was obviously excited to share her experience in any way she could, and help me on with my passion.

And this happened in a matter of minutes. In Alaska. Inside of 602, a coffee shop in a train car.

I got farther along in my pursuance of my magazine in five minutes here in small town Soldotna, AK than in six months in California.

It’s been here all along, in a place I simply took for granted.

In a section of an awesome new book I’m currently reading (of which you’ll hear more of as time goes on), it talked about the value of “weak ties.”

Weak ties are those relationships that aren’t part of your close cluster of comfortable and familiar friends, but are individuals who offer fresh perspectives, opportunities, information, and can turn into important connections.

I have a ton of strong ties, but I’ve never really been good at utilizing or seeing the possibility of having relationships with people I don’t know.

Well here’s a perfect example of two weak ties I made in a place I had checked off as being not ambitious enough, or too in my comfort zone for things to flourish.

I’m certainly not saying moving to California was a mistake, because if there’s anything I’ve learned since moving here, it’s been about myself. I stepped out of my comfort zone, I figured out that I can’t think my way through life but have to act upon my thoughts and do something, and I’ve learned a lot because of that.

There’s a reason my heart weeps when I leave Alaska, and it’s not because I’m Sensitive Sally. Alaska is a place that has the potential and the resources to help me become who I’m meant to be.

When I’ll be back? Time will tell.

But in the meantime, I’ll utilize the time whilst in California to continue to stretch myself out of my comfort zone even more, take advantage of the things not offered in Alaska, and I’ll look at each and every relationship I have with people, strong tie or weak tie, as possibilities to open doors I might otherwise keep shut.

I didn’t have WiFi all weekend, I didn’t have cell service, and my phone wasn’t even turned on, yet I got a better connection than if I were connected to all three.

I just spent a glorious three days off the grid, out in the deep sea part of the ocean dubbed Prince William Sound.

Located on the southern coast and on the cuff of the Gulf of Alaska, this impressive sound is home to 17 tidewater glaciers, the Chugach National Forest (second largest in the U.S.), spectacular views, deep waters, impressive wildlife (including bears, whales, seals, and multitudes of otters), and it offers a humbling experience.

Aside from the nature, the views, the wildlife, and the simple act of getting off the grid for a few days with my family, I found connection with a place that continually draws me back home.

Without the temptation of screens, I used all my abundant free time writing voraciously, laughing at my dad as he ate all the muffin tops off our muffins, and cheering my mom on as she reeled in a quillback rockfish.

I spent time actually living. In the moment, not peering at a device at someone else’s life, not tempted to spend every available moment mindlessly browsing the internet and feeling worse about myself when I become jealous of someone’s perfectly curated Instagram grid, and not feeling the obsession to capture every moment and post if for the world to see.

It humbled me in the sense that this type of environment, Alaska, is one of the few remaining places on earth not overrun by people, big businesses, skylines, smog, trash, pollution, and urban decay, and trending hashtags. It’s a northern gem that has the power to remind you of what matters:

Family. Self-sustaining life. Nature. And freedom to write about it all without electronic devices clouding the way and enticing me towards distraction.

We saw black bears, we reeled in yellow eye rockfish, we played with curious harbor seals, I watched as salmon swam upstream to spawn before a black bear stopped them in their path. We had flat seas, picture perfect blue skies, we picked up 10,000 year old ice from Tiger Glacier in Icy Bay for our Moscow Mules, and we explored the abandoned Chenega Village that was destroyed by the ‘64 Earthquake.

It was incredible.

And I’ve missed having this connection with nature since moving to overcrowded California.

The best thing I’ve got when I return to Cali though? Perspective.

I’ll never accept the way of life in California, the wasted hours spent on commuting, the atrocities you see in downtown San Francisco, and the pretentious attitude oozing out of many of the Walnut Creek residents. But I never would’ve learned what I do and don’t appreciate about a place without having lived it. And that’s what I’m doing now.

I’m finding the parts about Alaska I took for granted since moving somewhere new, I’m finding what I do and don’t like about places, as compared to Alaska.

I’m accepting of this fact as I hop off the ocean boat and make my way back to the Bart train because I’m figuring out my life: who I am, who I want to be, and who I’m turning into. What comes with this is knowing what I do and don’t like.

So whenever I get frustrated at seeing someone inject themselves with drugs, or another obnoxious driver flips me off and storms away, I’ll just smile to myself and and know that there’s a gem out there unlike this, and that these people haven’t been lucky enough to experience the world as I’ve lived it.

If you ever have the opportunity and the inkling to go off the grid and experience life outside of your comfort zone, I encourage you do to so. You broaden your horizons on the world and your perspective is dramatically widened.

Plus, you might see a bear munching on some spawned salmon. And you don’t see that every day…

Prince William Sound 2018

Yes, we are using old fashioned binoculars to search for bears.

Arriving into Icy Bay, collecting some nice ice baby.

Chenega Island, overgrown and abandoned. This here creek is home to many dead and alive salmon who have either already spawned, or are fighting their way up the stream to the lake to live out their last days spawning.

Below, I casually perch on the side of the bank next to skid marks that came from a black bear that had slipped just minutes before.

Lunch spot ain’t so bad!

At the end of one of our afternoons, Dad was ready to call it a day and anchor up, but I was keen on fishing. Though Prince William Sound isn’t entirely known for its fishing (on account of the deep waters, though they are known for their shrimp), we found this nice little hole in Lower Herring Bay and caught our limit of rockfish.