life | A Heart for Alaska

Written in May 2025

**The season is shifting again, and memories of Alaska are flooding in.**
Here in Michigan, everything feels muted—I miss the urgency and drama of real change, the wild call of the land I once called home.

Alaska pulsed with life: spring would explode overnight, summer was a brief, dazzling celebration crammed with activity, and then the shift—rains drenching the streets, vegetables swelling, and neighbors offering zucchini to grind and freeze. There, the calendar had a *texture*—the state fair’s giant pumpkins, the autumn leaves swirling gold and orange, the salmon running, the moose on the move. Even the wind was purposeful, sweeping the last leaves from the trees.

The markets here are a strange puzzle. Tomatoes in May, flowers that don’t speak the same language. Nothing seems to grow in rhythm with the land. In Alaska, I knew the taste and season of everything I ate. There, every person watched for the cues—the coming cold, preparations for winter, the hushed cooperation of survival.

Winter was my real teacher. When the sun barely rose and the world froze solid, life slowed and clarity arrived. The roads and breath, both sharp and cold. The crunch of snow beneath my boots. Blue skies so deep they seemed endless. The woodsmoke lingering on the coldest days, moose meandering through the streets, neighbors keeping silent watch. Not out of friendliness, but necessity—because winter didn’t care who you were, only that you paid attention. If I made it through the deep dark, I knew I’d be alright; enduring winter meant I’d earned another year.

My winters changed shape as my life shifted. With kids, it was hockey—tournaments, chaos, laughter at the rink. Alone, the winter was harsh, and then an unlikely friend. I learned to fix my furnace, patch the generator, keep out the wind. I became my own anchor, knitting my self-worth from each challenge met with grit.

Now, in this unfamiliar land, I long for those cycles—clear beginnings and endings, a community bound by necessity, rituals that made the passage of time real. What I miss isn’t just the scenery, but *the sense of belonging earned through resilience*, the meaning that comes when nature sets the pace and demands everything.

I’m searching for ways to create small rituals again, to find rhythm in a place that seems to lack it. Maybe I can lean into moments of change, mark each subtle shift, celebrate little victories as if they were milestones in the wild.

**I am carrying Alaska with me, even here—its harshness, beauty, and strength have become my own.**
Nothing can take away what I learned about surviving winter, or about myself.
This longing is a marker of what mattered most: connection, resilience, and the wild, relentless hope that spring is always on the other side of the dark.

*Reflecting on it all, I see now that even as I grieve for what’s lost, my strength endures—the changing seasons taught me I will always find my way back to hope.*

August, 2012!

Change is in the air.

The days are getting shorter with less sunlight down to 12 hours of daylight here in Alaska. The state fair is being set up. The morning are seeing more frost and school has started.
Soon the leaves will start to show colors beyond their green and the mountains will be overflowing with their bounty of berries.

The changes of nature.

The unstoppable change of the seasons.

Winter to Spring: with new life.

Spring to Summer: carefree and fun.

Summer to Fall: harvest all we have reaped.

Fall to Winter: to reflect and enjoy all that has come.

One could almost compare life to these season, many have.

For this woman it follows:

Spring: time to have new life; my children. To give birth is the most rewarding thing. The ultimate fulfilling of what it means to be a woman. Caring and loving this new life. Sharing in all of the growing. Guiding them into childhood, on their way to adulthood.
A time to feel life, to see it unfold. To realize how precious it is and how fragile. To have our eyes and feeling open and expanded in ways we never thought possible.

Summer: children now realize they are separate. That they can exist apart from their mom and dads. You watch as they form their perspectives, their opinions. Not always right, but shows they are a thinking individual. With help and loving guidance, children learn that decisions have consequences. These are the first steps to adulthood. Watching the seeds mature into full grown plants.

Fall: the most rewarding, yet the most painful. Now is the time for letting go. The children have grown. Some will marry, some continue school, other will serve in the military. Whatever they do, it will be their decision, and mom and dad have to step back. Let the child move forward. Mom and dad need to trust in what they have taught. They have to allow the child to fly, even if the child falls. Mom and dad can not hover as they once did. Waiting to catch a wrong decision. The consequences of decisions must fall on the young adult. Only this way can they learn true responsibility. To learn to think before acting. To weigh the results of ones actions to see if the price is worthy to be paid.

Yes! Fall is, for all, the most important season!
It is the season of Harvest. To reap what we have sown. To prepare for what come next.

Winter: sometimes dark, cold and lonely. But can be full of light, warmth and family. The time to see all of what the other three seasons have wrought. Reflection time. Not of regret, but of all that has been done. Not if you got it right but if it was full of love and forgiveness. Parents are not perfect, that’s why there are grandchildren in the winter. To keep mom and dad from stewing in regret, of things lost, things that are past, that had to change. In the winter, grandchildren are the warmth of hearts that feel to much pain, abandonment. The fire that melts the feeling of being unwanted, unneeded. The spark that flames the mind to action, to focus on today instead of yesterday.

No one can stop the seasons from changes. Just as no one can stop the passage of time. But one can accept them and make the most of all the seasons.
Enjoy, each and everyone of them.
Look forward to the challenges of each one. And rejoice in the rewards.
Don’t be stuck in one season fore then you’ll miss all that is in the next. Boldly move through each, savor what each season brings. Forgive your mistakes, learn from them, don’t let them become walls that keep you from moving forward.

Take pride in all you have achieved. Don’t let failures weigh you down. Failures show us: We tried! We really tried. One cannot achieve without first failing. Never measure your failures cause even though they may be many. Your success are all the more sweeter because of them.
So in the Winter stay warm on what you have achieved, love all that you have made so that light will always shine in your heart.

Dedicated to my mom; May her winter be full of love and joy.