March

It's March. Marvelous, miraculous, mad, March. Choose your alliterative adjective. March is on most Alaskans' short list of their two or three favorite months... other favorites are likely to vary depending on whether you consult a gardener, hunter, backpacker, paddler, painter, fisherwoman, or all or none of the above... perhaps May, June, July, August, September are on the list. A few will want to impress their toughness or your softness by saying they like the less friendly winter months… But March is almost certainly on their favorites list too… Of course there are qualities to those other months... I’ll conceded that no month is without some redemptive values. I just don't see any problem with showing favoritism. Go ahead, play devil’s advocate and tell me why I should like October more, or that November and December have days we've agreed on to celebrate, take off from work, and that makes them inherently special... I agree. But, but... in March, bright rays of permeating beauty don’t need any rationalization. ... March is the winter month we wait all winter for... it's the last month of winter, and most years, come March, I feel like I would be OK if it were the only month of winter. The sun is back - in force. During the last week there is finally more day than night. Celestially speaking, winter is over then...however, the ground is slow to catch up to the sky, and because of this, all the best of both adjacent seasons are married together for a few short weeks. Sun, warm air, snow. That equates to heaven... April and May are the true spring months of course, when the sluggish earth catches up to the sun’s persistent forcefulness and things spring quickly from slushy to muddy to riotous green... those months are infused with high energy, electric reawakening energy... yet ironically, in spite of all that pent up fervor those months precipitate, they are full of frustration... the transportation arteries of much of Alaska, our states colossal venation of rivers, are swollen and angry -- in breakup turmoil... floods, crushing rafts of ice, jams... spring is a time of not traveling. However... before then, there is March. March, ample March, with it's 31 days... brimming with day and days. March is arguably the best month of the year for travel. Snowpack is at it's maximum. Rivers are frozen thickest. The mountains call many. Those who spend any time outside get some skin pigmentation back... it's the best full month for loving and living in the snow...

On March 1, I celebrated the new month by getting out to the river to ski. My companion, 12 year old Jake, flatcoat retreiver, expressed his interest in coming along, so we went out together. Despite my above fawning description of the month, the day felt a little more like February 30th than March 1st. A pissed-off looking sun reached under frowning clouds low on the horizon. Thick pastels, fuchsias, violets, mauves, and good old fashioned reds and pinks painted the west. It was well after 6pm before I started. I had the guilty pleasure of having sort of blown off another commitment that evening… for no good reason really… just really needed the feeling of playing hooky… and to do something only me and this furry companion were privy to… I’m fairly near the bottom of the skate skiing talent curve. Hopefully outing number three on these skis will put me significantly higher, but for now the river offers the immeasurable benefit of being as flat as one can get around here, with blessedly wide trails… As I got into a rhythm, the universe relaxed into its transcendental state, that state that only honest exercise and fresh air can induce. The state where thoughts come in waves, and …oh, yes, of course, of course, this part of my life I’ve been fretting over is so clearly passing, and that part over there I’ve been neglecting is so clearly permanent and worthy of treasuring. Priorities crystallize. Ideas emerge. Thinking becomes lateral. Myopias vanish. In those couple of hours, I decided, yes, this is probably the meaning of life. This is what life may really be about. Traveling into the sunset on a frozen river with the unwavering companionship of a loyal animal. Life is good. I have had a good life. I am having a good life.
… At some point other thoughts of importance and immediacy began materializing at the periphery of my revery. Thoughts like, “geeze, my cheeks are feeling pretty stiff right about now,” and “hmm, that’s kinda weird that my left eyeball feels distinctly colder than the right.” And, “hmm, let’s see, yea, I can still feel a couple toes, good, good…” That’s when I noticed the wind had really picked up with sunset, and silly me, part of my easy progress had been due to the fact it was a direct tailwind. So, just about dark, a stiff breeze blowing downriver, and Jake beginning to wonder about our exact goals that evening… we turned around. Expansive, big-picture, meaning-of-life, thoughts were replaced by the pure singularity of journey-destination thoughts. Progress was slowed by a good fraction, I poled considerably harder, my feet got downright cold, and I got sorta miserable… and elated. I knew exactly where I was. I knew exactly how much real danger I was in (not much). And I knew that dinner and bed would be all the sweeter… and they were. Life is a journey… March is a month for travel… short or long… destination or no…