How long will I have her? How much time will I get to spend with him?

My wife during the worst of her recent nights of suffering. I am a bit confused, folks. Anyone who has followed this blog at all has probably figured out by now that I am one of those people who cannot stay in one place for very long, a person who, just when he starts to get comfortable gets up and goes somewhere else.

Being a photographer and writer, I have been able to make a living, even if a scary one, always on the edge of disaster, doing this. Through my wanderings, I have even raised and supported a family.

But I have been so often gone from that family.

And lately, in my head, I have been planning and scheming on ways to get out and go, go - go again, travel again, leave everybody behind again. I have talked it over with Margie and she has said, yes, that is how you make a living and that is what you must do and I miss you but I will be fine. We will all be fine.

And now she gets hurt again and needs my care both day and night. I know that she will recover. but still, it makes me think. I have no statistics to back it up but I suspect that by this point in my life, probably 60 percent of all the people that I have ever met are dead and gone.

My time is limited. Her time is limited. The time for all of us is limited. How much longer will I have her? And how much of that time will I spend galavanting here and there?

Without ever taking on another job, I have enough work to do right now that I could spend every day for the rest of my life here, in this house, in my office, writing, and pulling photos together for this and that, working on all these unfinished books that I have constructed in part or in whole, just to tear apart and start all over again.

And if I did nothing else, I could never finish them all but I would be home and I could spend that much more time with her.

"Well," she said, "when you are home, you are always out in your office, day and night, working, and I don't see you anyway. But it is nice when I do."

And yet... I so greatly enjoyed the five weeks that I just spent on the Arctic Slope, and I saw so much potential work that I have yet to do there that I want to go back, again and again. Then there is the rest of Alaska, every region of which I have done work in but not enough - no, not nearly enough.

And India!

How did I ever wind up falling in love with India?

Well, I did. And I want to go back. Again and again. And the pages of the calendar just keep flipping past.

And then the truth is I lack the financing to do any of what I want to do, whether it be to travel, stay home, go here and there taking pictures and gathering stories, or to sit in my office to blog and make books.

Financially, my life is a nightmare. I am always riding the razor's edge, bankruptcy a thread away, yet, somehow, so far, every time I find myself going under a hand always seems to grab mine and yank me back up to the surface - but not out of the current.

And then how about this guy, little Kalib? He has helped his grandmother through this ordeal. 

And every moment that I get to spend with him is joy to me, even when he gets naughty. Why would I ever want to leave him? He changed so much in the seven weeks that we were separated!

I, a person who walks everyday, or rides a bike, or cross-country skis (I didn't this past winter due to still being in recovery from my injury but I sure plan to in the months to come) have only taken two walks since I returned home and Margie got hurt. Both were very short and Kalib came with me.

On one, we saw this boy. I have no idea who he is. A woman who appeared to be his mother was following behind and we stopped to ask her and to give her the address to this blog, but she had a dog with her and that dog raised such a ruckus that both she and I gave up and took our little people off in opposite directions.

Yesterday morning, after taking care of Margie's needs, I left her under Lavina's watch and took little Kalib to breakfast at Family. It was our first such outing alone together - just the two of us. I hope to have many outings with him. For some reason, I often picture the two of us, paddling a canoe through the wilderness together, stopping here and there to pitch our tent and cook our fish.

We will have rifles with us and if the country is beginning to turn red and yellow and the moose are in season, or the caribou, we will shoot.

These things may never happen, but in my mind I see them.

I don't know what could be much better than that.

Driving on, all the way to Palmer, we spot a woman telling a story to a cop. He appears to be most interested.

Before we left Family, Kalib went to the gumball machine. I reached into my pocket for a quarter, but I did not have one.

He still left happy.

Comments

[doe-doe]

You are a very blessed man with such wonderful family, family from different parts of the world. Yes, you are right, we don't know when our time will come and that brings me to what our parents use to talk to us about. Their big question about "are we ready to meet our maker?" I believe they did their job to instil some values in us and we try to instill those same values in our children.

Bill, you are living your life while others are just preparing to retire, I say, why not live so that there will be no regrets. I wouldn't want to just work and then try to live at retirement..I want to live now and forget retirement.

Keep up the good work...and looking forward to seeing all your work.

[Sandy]

I'm so touched by this. You & Margie shall live to be more than a hundred years... Like the
elders in Iditarod, Point Lay (if I remember it right?). All your dreams shall come true. This is just a passing cloud my dear Bill... Cheer up! We still have those long walks, cycling together etc to accomplish...Now, Kalib would join us too! It'll be so much fun!

[Grandma Nancy]

And this too shall pass, and the days will get better. Without mountains there would be no valleys. Or in the words of Sarah Palin in one of her tweets, "No rain, No rainbows." At least that is true. Please give your dear wife a huge hug. She knows that she is loved.

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

Thank you, Doe-Doe, Sandy and Grandma Nancy. I know you all speak from experience. Your words are appreciated.