Three studies of the young writer, Shoshauna; two studies of the aging photographer/author whose blog just won an award / two sisters

The recent great drama for the moon, of course, was the total eclipse that overtook it just as winter solstice began. Even after the drama, the moon would linger, in full, throughout the solstice.

As all who frequent this blog know, I am a person who must get out into the open air and do something every day - walk, ride my bike, cross-country ski (at least before I shattered my shoulder and I hope very soon again) but lately I haven't.

Until yesterday afternoon, I had not taken a single walk since I last strolled across the lagoon in Barrow almost two weeks ago. I just have not been able to make myself do it and I have been atrophying. Yesterday, I decided that I must break through this and so I went walking.

As I walked, I could not help but think that this winter solstice day marked one month from the morning that I received the news that Anil had been killed in a car crash.

And today, this day, when I sit here writing, marks one month since I got the news that Sandy had followed her husband.

One month, yet I feel ten years older than I did when I awoke November 21.

I have been resisting the idea of old age - it has been my theory that old age is concept that applies to other people, but not me - that no matter how many years I accumulate, I will remain a young man.

Right now, it doesn't feel that way anymore.

Still, I intend to fight it.

Late last night, I also learned that this little blog of mine had been voted in as the Best Photography Blog of 2010 in the Blogger's Choice Awards.* For this, I would like to thank all of you who have cast votes on my behalf. And thank you, smahoney, for nominating my work in the first place.

I feel great sorrow that I cannot share this news with Sandy. I will share the news with her, and I will feel that she knows, but I won't know this for certain.

Or maybe I will.

Even when you feel something in certainty, it is hard to know for certain.

After I learned that I had won this award, I went into the house and told Margie. She did something she does not often spontaneously do that much anymore. She spontaneously reached up, put her arms around my neck, lifted her face to mine and kissed me right on the lips.

"That's wonderful," she said. "I'm not surprised. Well, I am surprised. But I'm not surprised."

It was a nice moment.

This woman has gone through so much, sacrificed so much, including anything even resembling security as old age approaches, just so I could follow my dreams and be a photographer/writer in Alaska - wandering here, wandering there, never working for money but always for love, sometimes bringing in a sudden flush of money but most of the time accomplishing quite the opposite.

Thank you, Margie.

Even before my walk ended, I started the car with the remote from about 100 yards away. I then poked my head into the house and told Margie that I was headed to Metro Cafe. OK, she said.

So here I am, pulling up to the drive-through line at Metro Cafe.

As I saw the people inside, I remembered the words from Cheers that Ice Road Truck Driver and India's Most Dangerous Road driver Lisa Kelly employed to tell CNN why she likes to go to Metro Cafe.

"Sometimes you just want to go to where everybody knows your name."

I don't think that everybody who was inside Metro Cafe on this day knows my name. 

But Shoshauna does. Shoshauna knows my name. And she had a smile on her face as I approached.

When I got to the window, Shoshauna informed me that, once again, an anonymous person had bought my coffee and my cinnamon roll. I have an idea who this anonymous person might be - in fact, I think there might be more than one anonymous person.

Whether I am right or wrong, I appreciate it.

Study # 3: Shoshauna, the young writer, preparing my coffee.

I was still sipping that coffee when I drove across the Little Su. I had finished the cinnamon roll.

I turned around at Grotto Iona, A Place of Prayer, and headed back towards home.

Along the way, I saw this car.

And this from India - Two Sisters:

Actually, I do not know that they are sisters. They may have been cousins, aunt and niece, teacher and student, mentor and apprentice - or just friends.

I know nothing about them, other than what you can see in this picture. I took it in a flash of a moment through the window of a taxi, hired by Murthy and Vasanthi, to take Melanie and me touring about southern India with them - and with Buddy.

I cannot even tell you what village we were passing through. It was one of countless.

*Two other Alaska-related blogs won Blogger's Choice Awards: Palingates, for Best Political Blog and conservatives4palin for Worst Blog of All Time. Congratulations to the both of you.

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For Soundarya, her sister Sujitha and her brother Ganesh: the eclipse that could not be seen from India, as observed from Wasilla, Alaska

As it drew near to the time of the total eclipse of the moon that took place above us late last night and early this morning, I was wondering how I should deal with it on this blog, or if I should deal with it at all.

After all, millions of cameras all across North America and wherever else it could be viewed would be pointed at that eclipse and there would really be nothing that I could contribute to the mix. Among those cameras would be those of NASA, of other professional astronomers and of many amateur astronomers who would have just the right equipment to really tell the story.

As for me, I could not even find my tripod head. I would have to shoot hand-held, with a maximum telephoto of 400 mm - not that great for coming in close on the moon.

Then, as always, I thought of Sandy and I knew that if she still lived, I would go out and take some pictures of the eclipse, just because it would not be visible from India and I would want to share the experience with her as best I could.

I would tell her what it was like to go in and out of the house, never bothering to put on a jacket or hat or gloves or anything, because what did it matter if the temperature was -18 on her C scale. This was solstice, the time when the sun ceases its retreat to the south and turns once more to the north, to bring the light and warmth back to us.

It was right that there should be a bit of bite in the air, even if it wasn't all that cold, and that I should feel it without the protection of warm clothing. No danger - the house is right there, behind me, fire burning in the wood stove.

So that is what I would have done - I would have taken the pictures of the eclipse. I would have emailed them to her and I would have written about the experience.

I thought of her sister, Sujitha, and her brother Ganesh. They would not see the eclipse, either. Sure, they could find better pictures of it online than what I would take, but if I shot it, it would give them a direct connection.

So, Sandy, Suji and Gane:

This post is for you.

The thought does strike me that perhaps Sandy had a better view of the eclipse than did all of us, even those at NASA. I don't know. Perhaps.

It is all a mystery to me.

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At the weekends important Alaska book signing: Jobe greets progressive Phil Munger in the gleam of Sarah Palin's smile; Jobe spills the coffee; Jobe rolls on the floor / Amazing Grace

Here is Jobe and Melanie speaking with classical music composer and Progressive Alaska blogger Phil Munger at the important Alaska book signing that took place this weekend. Phil's wife, Judy Youngquist, was one of Melanie's teachers during her days at Tanaina Elementary School, and sometimes Phil filled in and taught her, too.

Another substitute teacher that Melanie had at Tanaina was Chuck Heath. Undoubtedly by now, the reader has noticed the face of Chuck Heath's famous daughter, Sarah Palin, beaming out from the three books on the lower part of the shelf between Jobe, Melanie and Phil. Probably, cynical readers are imagining that I set this picture up just this way - but no, I didn't.

It's just how it happened. I didn't even realize Sarah Palin's face was in the picture until after I took it. I was rather pleased when I discovered this, because it gave me some opportunities to play with today's title a bit and thereby draw in those legions of potential readers who only stop by if there is a hint that Sarah Palin might somehow be on this blog.

While I have generally tried to stay away from Palin on this blog, Phil has not been so reticent. He has written a great deal about Palin, whom he has known for decades.

But I have begun with a distraction. I had come to this place, Fireside Books in Palmer, because a signing for a very important book about Alaska was taking place here.

The important book that was being signed was "Purely Alaska - Authentic Voices from the Far North," a collection of stories written by 23 authors, most of them Native, spread across the roadless regions of Rural Alaska. The writings were inspired, encouraged, compiled, and edited by John Creed and wife Susan Andrews.

The two both began their careers as journalists, but then became teachers of journalism and writing at Chukchi College in Kotzebue - an extension of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. They eventually set up a statewide, long-distance learning program conducted via the internet. The stories in the book come from their students.

They are the real thing, written for love, not money and driven by the human desire to communicate one individual to another, one culture to another.

So I would suggest that readers consider buying this book, just as did Heather McCausland, for whom John is seen adding his autograph to Susan's. It will be worth it.

John, Susan and family.

John photographs Jobe.

I met first met John in September of 1981, when I flew into Kotzebue for the first time. He took me to a fish camp in Noorvik and helped me in many ways. I came back again after freeze-up and it was a wonderful, glorious, thing, because Kotzebue Sound had frozen solid and thick but there was not a snowflake upon it - just miles and endless miles of clear, smooth, slick ice.

We walked out onto that ice and then could not stop ourselves from running and sliding, running and sliding, running and sliding, until we had ventured well beyond the limits of common sense and safety. We had no gun and had a hungry polar bear come along, we would have been defenseless.

But it was such great fun that we didn't care and we knew that the odds were in our favor.

Yes, there was another book signing this weekend, at Costco in Anchorage, and it drew a whole lot more attention than did this one.

Trust me, though - this book will be the better, most informative and enjoyable read. The power and strength of the stories in it will live on when those in the other book have fallen into their place as a political curiousity and trivia, lacking depth and substance; hyperbole - a memento of a strange fad that rose out of my own little town at a troubled time in America to place an absurd and perplexing grip upon my homeland for a limited number of years.

But if you want substance, not fad, then read "Purely Alaska." Read the other one, too, if you like and if you are up to the task.

After we left the book signing, Melanie, Jobe and I walked less than one block to Vagabond Blues to get some coffee.

I know - some are wondering how I could be so fickle as to go get my coffee here and not at Metro Cafe, but Metro is closed on Sundays and we were in Palmer, anyway.

You know what the lyrics to the famous rock-and-roll song say:

"When you can't drink the coffee you love, love the coffee you can drink."

Such is my philosophy on the subject.

We ordered our coffee, got it, sat down and then Jobe grabbed Melanie's and spilled it all over the floor. It was okay. She just got another and we proceeded on, unperturbed.

Jobe did not get a coffee. Jobe drank from a bottle of his own mother's milk. Then he and Melanie played with the bottle cap.

Jobe is a very bright fellow, by the way; observant. He takes in everything around him. He enjoys the magic of learning and each conscious moment is magic for him. He brings magic back into my own life, even now, at this time.

And to Sujitha, sister of Soundarya - he brings magic back to her as well.

Jobe found that the lid to a bottle of mother's milk can also make a nice hat. He was very pleased with his new hat.

I should note that when Phil Munger first came to Alaska, he piloted a fishing boat by the name of Jo-be, pronounced just the same as Jobe, from Ketchikan to Cordova.

The three of us lingered at Vagabond for probably close to an hour, every minute of it pleasant and wonderful.

Finally, we had to leave. I had driven to Palmer alone with Jobe. Melanie had driven out from Anchorage to meet us. We wanted to drive back to the house together, so we left Melanie's car in Palmer and I drove us home to Wasilla.

I didn't time it, but it usually takes close to half-an-hour, so I suspect that it did this time, as well.

When we pulled into the driveway, Jobe was fast asleep in his car seat.

The light was exceedingly dim, so, even though I was shooting at 6400 ISO, I had to drop down to a quarter or half-second exposure, - very difficult to do shooting free hand - so I took my time and took several shots.

I knew that from inside the house, all Lavina could see would be our headlights. She had not seen her baby Jobe since the day before. She did not discover that I had shanghaied him off to Palmer until she and Jake arrived at the house to find us gone. I knew that she was wondering why I was taking so long to bring him in. 

When finally we did go in, we found people baking, icing, sprinkling and eating Christmas cookies. I would have taken Kalib to Palmer with me as well, but he was asleep when I left.

Melanie observes Jobe as he rolls across the floor.

And this one from India:

This is just a few frames short of being the final picture that I took during the trip that Melanie and I made to India to attend the wedding of Soundarya and Anil. I took the picture as our cab driver approached the Bangalore Airport. As I have earlier noted, other than the wedding pictures, I have never had the time to sift through my take to see what I have.

It has now become very important to me that I do, even though the task seems immense and impossible, given my other responsibilities. I have put the entire, India, Part 2, take into my Lightroom editor and so I set out to skim quickly through to see if I could get some kind of idea of what I have - particularly when it comes to images of Soundarya, and of Soundarya and Anil, as well as the man who walked a scorpion, the monkey who jumped the gap and the dinner of bananas that Vijay fed to us.

I scrolled rapidly through the entire take over the course of maybe three hours, possibly four, bypassing hundreds of images at a time but stopping every now and then, especially when I would spot an image of Sandy.

As I did this, I had the radio tuned to KSKA. In the final hour, as part of whatever program was on the air, a female folksinger was being interviewed. Every few minutes, the interviewer would pause to let her perform a song. I was absorbed in the pictures and did not pay much attention, but she had a nice voice and it made pleasant backgroud music.

Then, to my dread, I came to the final series of frames that I will ever shoot of Soundarya. At the very moment - THE VERY MOMENT - that my final image of Soundarya appeared full-screen in my editor, the folksinger began to sing...

Amazing Grace...

...and she sang it beautifully...

.. she sang it for Soundarya, my cherished Hindu soul friend - she sang it for me, the rebellious, strayed Mormon who has chosen to walk an indeterminate path...

Here is Judy Collins, singing the same song, for any who might care to listen.

I have probably listened to it 20 times since coming upon that final picture. I am listening to it right now. My eyes are not dry.

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The seventh day...

Driving to Anchorage in sub-zero weather. Margie and I picked up Jobe and Kalib and brought them home with us. Now we need to rest.

Genesis 2:2-3

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

I know - technically, Sunday is the first, not the seventh, day, but pyschologically it has become the seventh day for a few billion of us. It is also true that I am not a person of religious faith, but today, on this particular seventh day, I feel a need to rest.

Therefore, I shall accept the admonition of these words from the Old Testament, and on this seventh day will follow the example of God and will make it somewhat of a day of rest.

Tavra.

Some good news! Larry goes home to Barrow, I get a free cup, Raven sits upon a pole; driver of the ric

There has been much sadness in this blog lately and I believe that sadness is going to linger for some time, but I have some happy news to report today. Larry Aiken has gone home to Barrow. His radiation and chemo therapy was painful beyond anything he would have believed, but did succeed and killed his tumor.

So, the day after I took this picture, Larry got to board an airplane and head home for Barrow. There, he will spend about one month learning how to eat again and to regain his strength and weight. Then he will come back to Anchorage for major surgery to remove the killed tumor.

His fight is not over, but he has completed a huge part of it. "I am absolutely going to beat it," he told me.

He gives a great deal of credit to his sister, Ruth Aiken, who called him everyday from Barrow to say, "Larry, don't you dare give up on me."

Earlier on the day of this photo, Larry received a certificate of graduation from the radiation therapy staff that gave him his treatment. 

The certificate declared that:

"Mr. Larry Aiken has completed the prescribed course of radiation therapy with the highest degree of courage, determination and good nature. We appreciate the confidence placed in us and the opportunity to serve you."

I pulled up to the window of Metro Cafe where Shoshauna informed me that, once again, an anonymous benefactor had bought me coffee and a cinnamon roll.

Thank you, Anonymous.

After I drove away from Metro, sipping and chewing, I came upon this scene on Shrock Road. If you look closely, you can see a whale in that cloud.

And here is a raven, sitting on a pole in downtown Wasilla. That raven does not care who the mayor is or ever was. That raven knows Wasilla like no mayor ever will.

That raven is very intelligent.

Moon over Pioneer Peak.

And this one from India:

This is the man who was driving the auto rickshaw at the time I took the picture that appeared in yesterday's post about the cold, empty, streets of Bangalore.

He was driving the rick when I took this picture, too.

He tried to charge us more than he should have, but Sandy would not let him get away with it.

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