Just Another Tuesday

So many thoughts today, she wrote, as though this day were any different from all the others that had happened before, to everyone else. As though a day filled with thoughts were an oddity, and this day in particular were special, because the thoughts were a little more mundane than on other days, and therefore required more reflection. And, of course, an audience wrapped in ether, nodding its head at her sage musings, knowing all the while that this was just an exercise at the barre, a chance to stretch and notice her lack of turn-out in the great prose mirror.

I drove to Earthquake Park on Sunday. Actually, I drove to the park beyond that, at Postmark Rd. or whatever road leads away from the inlet toward the airport. I just parked there, and looked at Denali, all pink and holy, and then over at the postcard of Anchorage against the Chugach. I used to drive to that part the summer after freshman year of college; every Friday night at eleven thirty or midnight when I had scraped the last dried strawberries out of their metal bin at the airport TCBY. I’d have yogurt up to the elbows—I was always so tired that I’d wash my hands to keep the steering wheel clean, but screw the rest—and drive Dad’s truck to the park to watch the sunset on the city, lying to my parents later that it took an extra half hour to finish at work..

Sunday I mostly watched ice flow out on the tide. The silt beach was frozen solid, but the ice moved in big grey chunks, the way I imagine ambergris to look, racing out to sea. It made the water in summer look lazy, pooling around and lapping at the beach. The ice was all business, bumping its way away from the city like new high school graduates heading Outside. I got out of the car and leaned against its dirty hood, hoping to hear the floes moving like I would in a movie, but all I heard was wind and the engines of other people’s cars as they parked for photos. After all of the mess of Saturday, the very lack of drama was what made the moment perfect.

This evening was like that, too. I was driving home, and felt no compulsion to make my exit. I just stayed on the highway and drove (thank goodness I get excellent gas mileage, or the granolas would kill me) until I didn’t want to anymore. I passed Chugiak, and there was Denali again—huge and blushing—and then past Mirror Lake and Eklutna until I was on the flats headed to Palmer. Once on the straightaway, I saw that, while all of the trees have lost their snow, the willow bushes are all frosted; covered in ice crystal except where the moose have brushed them brown. In a couple of months the flats will be covered in water and grasses and wild irises, and the side of the road littered with moose calf carcasses serving as memorials to our impatience. For right now, though, I’m quite content with our clean highway, and slow ice, and scraping my car in the morning. Leaving home was hard. Leaving school was ten times harder. Coming home was worth it, and looking around my little apartment—my organized closet, made bed, cluttered craft room and newly-Swiffed ™ laminate floors—it was the right thing for me. I’m glad God knows I need the reminders.