Monday, August 8 2022

Valdez, Alaska.

8AM. I wake up in the Keystone Hotel. It's pouring. I put on sneakers and rain jacket and go for a run.

Yesterday I was certain I'd seen great green mountains embracing both town and harbor. Today I have no proof of such vistas. The clouds are terrestrial. Visibility is maybe half a mile.

The ground is flat and the air is cool and fresh. Within two minutes my feet are soaked through my running shoes, but it doesn't bother me. I go for a couple of miles like it's nothing.

Jogging back to the hotel, I pass a fledgling crow poking around the cracks in the boardwalk. I stop. Reach into my pocket and procure a pecan. Toss it baby's way. As I watch the kid nibble the nut, a sensation comes over me that I am being watched back. I turn to my left and look up into the rafters of a fish-cleaning station. A dozen or so crows look back.

I talk to them. Softly. Ask them if this is their roost. They don't answer. The crows seldom answer my questions. But they listen. They are alert, but they are not afraid. I leave them what crumbs I have in my pockets and jog back to the hotel.

I shower and change. Look at my face in the mirror. It's not the same face I saw yesterday. This woman looks alive. The color is back in her cheeks. Her eyes twinkle. Yesterday was hard, but it's only now that I see it. Today I am stronger.

All around here there are trails. Recreation areas. Countless opportunities to explore the nature of this place. But the rain, oh the rain. There would be little to see other than mud and wet trees, which, while still beautiful, are nothing new for a Portlander. There may be some sights. New smells. But slopping through the muck is not Pilot's idea of a good time. So we lay low. Observe the surroundings the way I love best: through the eyes of the crow.

I park the car near the ferry port. Pilot and I trot around for a bit but he makes it clear he's not digging the rain. It's a protest the whole way, and by the end of it I'm not sure if he's shivering because he's cold or if it's an act to make me feel like a terrible person for dragging him out in such miserable weather. I put him back in the car. Dry him off and get him cozy in the sub-zero sleeping bag. As I'm tucking him in, I notice a woman approaching. She makes eye contact. Stops some distance away. Her posturing is one I recognize. She's about to ask me for something.

"Hey, do you think you could give me a jump?" she calls out. She nods toward a big red pickup with a plywood camper shell. It's a dozen yards away, but I can see someone sitting in the driver's seat. My feelings are all over the place about this encounter, but one thing is certain: my guard is up.

"I don't have any jumper cables," I reply. It's true, I don't. And while I have a portable jumper, I'll drain the thing out trying to jump a battery that size.

"I do," she offers.

I look at her face. It looks prematurely aged. Maybe from meth, maybe from roughing it in Alaska, maybe both. But her eyes are bright. She is present.

"Do you know how to do it?" I ask. I want to pay it forward. Help free someone else from the desperate situation of being stranded. But I need more interaction before I can trust her. I'm a city girl. My experiences have taught me that strangers in need can be dangerous, even when that need is legitimate.

"Yeah!"

She is enthusiastic. She is relieved. She is telling the truth.

"Awesome, ok, I'll be right there."

Their truck is in the ferry port parking lot, engine facing the road. I pull the car in front of it and put it in park. I block the road. My city girl life experiences rustle around my internal chaos and find some anxiety over this. I shouldn't block roads, it tells me. Waves the anxiety in my face. My travel experiences push it aside. There's nobody coming. Nobody here but us. There are no ferries scheduled today. We'll move if it becomes a problem.

The woman introduces herself. Introduces her partner, who does little more than grunt and climb back into the cab and get ready to crank the engine. We swap this-is-how-my-battery-died stories while she retrieves her jumper cables and connects the two batteries. She asks me about my travels. Tells me it's a good idea to carry a candle if you're sleeping in your car because it can raise the temperature 15 degrees when it's freezing. She used to live in the bush, she says. She heard of a family that froze to death, and of another that asphyxiated from using a camp stove to keep warm. She's being helpful, sincere, yet I still find it important to iterate that I am just traveling, that I have an apartment back home that I'll return to long before winter. I'm setting myself apart from her and her partner and their vagrant lifestyle. I feel shame and regret as soon as the words come out, but if she notices any of my revealed prejudice, she doesn't let on.

Her partner cranks the engine on the truck. My car's idle drops low. So low I think it could die. My body flushes with fear at the thought of become stranded here right alongside them, blocking the road, no less, but after after a few cranks their truck is running. My car's idle goes back to a healthy purr.

We cordially part ways. I go back to the crows.

I eat lunch. Snacks, really. Take Pilot out for another walk. We try a local trail called Blueberry Hill. Within wo minutes he decides hiking up this strange hill in the rain is animal cruelty. He turns around and pulls me back to the car. I don't argue, but I don't let on that I have plans to further torture him.

Harvesting poop from a dog is something that must be done at least once daily, but twice is optimal. This ensures that your crop of dog remains healthy and productive so that you can enjoy the by-products of poop harvesting, such as joy and lifelong companionship. My dog's crop has failed to yield in almost 24 hours, most likely because of the rain. In an effort to rectify the situation, I seek out a lonely and sodden dog park. I plop Pilot in the middle of it, clad in waterproof parka and thermal underwear. He stands there, bitter and bewildered. I let him sulk. Eventually he gives up the protest and starts the slow sniff-patrol that ultimately leads to finding the perfect place to shit.

We both rejoice.

We return to the hotel. Dry off, warm up, lay low for a while. I think about the journey to come. The big drive. The climax of the trip that involves hundreds of miles of dirt road. I'm nervous. Is it raining there, too? Will we end up stuck and stranded on a washed out road somewhere in the Arctic?

I think about life. About me. About the work I have done and who I've become. Who I am. About what I like. Who I like. I don't know anymore. It used to be lost boys. Damaged goods. Any talented and wild lone wolf that I thought I could rescue. Thought I could fix. I would love them until it cured them, and when they were cured, they would love me back. They would rescue me. They would fix me. And then I would know love, true love, finally, at long last. Then I would be safe. It was the broken I was drawn to. And the boys. Always the boys. Women terrified me. My mother terrified me. I stayed far away from women.

I look at my left hand, at my fingers, the proportions of which, according to research, indicate that I am more likely to be a lesbian. Am I a lesbian? I don't know. It doesn't matter out, here, though. On the road.

On the journey.

The day wears on. We go back out. I drive around town. Around the neighborhoods. Past a school and a hospital and down to a riverbed that you can drive out onto. I drive up a hill lined with expensive-looking houses that probably cost less that a condo in the bad parts of Portland. It's still raining. I drive to Safeway. Buy high-priced produce and marvel at the cost of Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water. Twenty dollars for a two-gallon jug. Four times that of the other brands. My mind fills with questions I will never ask.

Eventually it's late enough to justify making dinner. I find a spot along the docks with some covered tables that I'd missed yesterday when I'd rigged up my automobile cooking shanty. I lug out my stove and cookware. Bring out the food.

I'm half-way through chopping and prepping when I slip on the ground beneath my feet. I look down.

I'm standing in vomit.

I let my head hang for a moment. Stare at the green-speckled pink slime under my red hiking boots. I sigh. Look up.

Nobody around to complain to. Nobody to extend sympathy. Share disgust. Validate my experience. I back carefully out of the barf. Seek out a puddle. They are in ample supply. I wade and scuff, wade and scuff. Nearby a flock of gulls ogles the pile of sliced sausage I've left unattended on the table. I give them a look that says there will be a giant mess of blood and feathers if anyone fucks with my dinner.

Nobody fucks with my dinner.

I return to my dinner camp, and, avoiding the ejaculatory endings of nautical nausea, I carefully move my stove, cookware, and food to a vomit-free table, where I finish the task of cooking the scrambled eggs with sausage and cheese I've been craving since breakfast.

I eat in the car. The crows show up. Maybe they've found me, maybe they were just passing by. I don't know. I don't dare to be so presumptuous. After I clean my dishes I break out some sausage that is about to spoil. I set it out on a railing for the crows, half expecting a gull invasion. The gulls are quiet, though, likely not from my powers of intimidation but rather out of fear after seeing an eagle eating one of their own. The crows come forth. Just two. Dad. One of his babies. I've known these crows maybe a day, but they already trust my wares. Trust me. I may not know who I am in the dating world, but I know who I am here, in the wild world.

I am the crow lady.

---

Read Day 11.

Read Day 9.

---

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For those interested, the crows featured in these photos are Northwestern Crows, smaller than the American Crows in Portland that I usually photograph. The eagle, well, that's an eagle of the bald variety, although you can see they have plenty of hair. And for the record, I would never harm a seagull for stealing my food. Them's just writn' words.