my little alaska

There are a lot of thoughts swirling around my head these days.  I’m guessing it’s inevitable, as you wait for a milestone that can’t be totally planned for, and that has you far less active than  you’re used you, to think about life, what has made you who are you (or if you can and want to even define that), and what life may look like in the future.

What has stood out for me in the past few days—thanks to the forget-me-nots that remind me of my grandfather, Roger, that are busting out all over our garden—is how thankful I am for him, and how he treated me.  He was, technically, my step-grandfather, but he was around my entire life so he was just part of the family to me.  He was a great guy—a little crazy, perhaps, and more bigoted than I could ever fathom (which I chalked up to his age, growing up in the Midwest, and a life of experiences that I don’t know about), but also more energetic and upbeat than 99% of the people I have ever known, even in his nineties.  One of the things that stands out to me when I think back to growing up, and my relationship to Roger, is how unwavering and vocal he was in his belief that I was really, really smart.  I’m sure that he probably thought I was lots of other things too, that I was good at sports and pretty and all that stuff that grandparents think about their kids, but when I look back through the filter of time, I can’t remember him commenting on things like that at all.  What I do remember is how damn smart he always thought I was, and how he was always bringing me old math and science books, and how he thought that I could do absolutely anything with that brain of mine.  And yes, I remember knowing that he was proud of me for being so damn smart, too—probably an essential piece of the whole puzzle.  I might not have agreed with him about my smarts for a lot of my growing-up years, and I know that I didn’t fully appreciate the math book gifts when they were given, but I heard his message and it obviously stuck, since I can still hear it now.  And, to be honest, I probably need to hear it now more than I did then, in a lot of ways. 

I think of things like this now, when I thinking about bringing a boy or girl into our world.  We don’t know which will be joining our family in the next week or so, and no, it doesn’t really matter to us, but it’s already pretty obvious to me from the past few months that just being a boy or a girl will get it very different treatment from our culture.  This recent blog post about a book I read last fall reminded me of it, and also reminded me of this other post from a few years ago that really stuck in my head (obviously, since it’s two years old!).  We, as a society, may proclaim equality between genders, but at least in looking at the weird consumerist baby/child culture, it’s seems more divided than previously, largely due to the almighty cause of making a few extra bucks.  It’s not that girls are underrated or something—I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve heard along the lines of “I sure hope you have a girl, girls are just better”—but the words we say and the environments we put kids in are so seemingly segregated even before they are born.  What, I’m not decorating a nursery?  What, I’m planning on putting a maybe-a-girl-baby in a blue room?  I will put fire truck onesies on any baby and that surprises you—why exactly?

It’s really no different than our culture in general these days, I know.  I’m just seeing the baby/kid part of it for the first time, and so it’s a whole new set of voices and shouting to have to filter out.  And that gets me back to the voices I have to remember to filter IN for the kiddo—the voices that  say that he/she is smart, strong, beautiful,  kind, funny, or whatever else they turn out to be. 

Miss you, Roger.  Thanks again.  

The day started foggy but cleared up into a perfect summer day (if you think that 65 degrees is summer, which we most definitely do).  Some days you just have to put away the “To Do” list and get outside, and this was most definitely one of them.

Happy Birthday to me!  It was perfect; sun, beach, campfire, cheesedogs, and birthday s’mores.  Plus I got to nap by the fire!

I put this photo up on Facebook and it got all sorts of interesting responses, so before you either say “ACK, what are you doing up there 4 weeks before your due date?!” or “You’re so badass!” let me say that yes, this is a posed photo.  It’s not scary and it’s not badass.  But I’m putting it here on my blog because I like it, not because of the photo exactly, but for what it represents to me.  

At our last training, I realized after struggling for a minute or two to get my swollen feet into my fire boots, that it was likely the last time I’d be in my gear until after the baby shows up (and yes, no lectures please—I realize I have no idea what life will be like then, and can’t say for sure when the next time I’ll be putting on gear will be.  Hopefully it won’t be too long.).  Anyways, at the end of the drill, I asked one of my engineers to take a photo of me in gear in front of Ladder 2.  I just felt that it should be recorded that I could still fit into my gear (okay, I can’t close the fly on my pants, but I can zip my jacket, which only says how ill-fitting fire gear is for women) at this point. But he said, “Want to go up on the ladder for the photo?” to which I was hesitant… until he started putting out the stabilizers and raising the ladder.  HECK YEAH.  I was a little slow getting up there, and the ladder isn’t at any sort of steep angle, but still.  It made for a pretty great photo.

What it says to me, more than anything, is how great my department has been regarding me being pregnant.  For the most part, everyone has been supportive and let me continue to participate as I felt comfortable.  Only a few times did I get a somewhat annoying “Do you really think you should be doing that?” which was irritating depending mainly on the person it came from, and if that person was half-joking/half-condescending, or if they were actually concerned about my well-being.  I didn’t get much crap for NOT doing things, nor did I get banned from doing anything.  It was a great feeling to feel as though I was trusted to make the right decisions—because yes, I’m not an idiot, and I never had any plans to run into a burning building 6 months pregnant or something.  But I also didn’t feel like I had to give it up completely—nor did I feel like it would do me any good—because I love fire, and it keeps me sane, and if there were things I did need during the past 9 months, it was ways to keep myself sane and feeling connected to the people around me.

So this is just my little thanks to my firefighters, for never seeming awkward around the pregnant girl, for never making me feel left out of the fun except by my own choice, for helping me take off my gear when my boots got stuck on my swollen pregnant feet, and for all the little things like encouraging me to get up on that ladder for this photo.  My kiddo is going to be born into a bunch of great “families”, and I’m glad that this is one of them.

It is mid May and it was snowing when I woke up this morning.  Not just hail, but real, big, soft flakes of snow.  Luckily in the past few hours the sun has come out and so it’s back to spring.  I picked my first rhubarb this morning and then had to get out and take a few photos of the garden.  I know I take similar photos every year, but that is fine by me.  The details are worth paying attention to. 

springtime beachcombing

just me, walking on the beach recently.  a little reminder of a good day out.

Spring feels like it is really slow to come this year.

June is just in a month, and I’m not sure it could feel further away.  We spent last weekend in Juneau, waking up every morning to fresh snow, dodging deep slush puddles, and never once seeing the mountain peaks because of fog and snow.  If it weren’t light until well after dinner, it could have been November: time to curl up, stoke the wood stove, plan hunting trips, and settle in for the winter.  Once back in Sitka, and officially into the month of May, the torrential rain, hail and stormy winds haven’t done much to dispel those notions.

But it’s actually May now—you can hear it in the early mornings, when the thrushes songs are heard over the pattering of rain outside the window—and I have a month to go until we get to meet our kiddo.  A month!  It seems both too soon and too far away for me.  There is so much to get done before he/she shows up (mainly at work) but my general speed is decreasing day by day, so it’s an interesting mix of energy/movement and relaxing/quiet so far.  It’s refreshing, as an over-planner and an over-thinker, to have such a discrete timeline to work within.  In a month, things will be different, and regardless of what I might try to do to prepare, I don’t know how they will be different—so preparing too much seems like a waste of precious, quiet, relaxed time!  And even when I get a notion of something that needs to get done, inevitably my body steps in and makes a much stronger ruling at some point—it says, Nope, it’s not THAT important, and you need to go to bed!!  I can go from 60 to 0 in about 5 seconds flat.  And then I just am thankful for the luxury of being able to stop when my body wants me to.

Whether it’s the winter weather or the fact that my due date is just a calendar page away, I’ve definitely had my pensive moments recently.  I can’t imagine I’m the only parent-to-be that starts being an amateur psychologist as the time gets closer.  For one, no doubt, part of me knows that the times for indulgent self-reflection are winding down, but also, you can’t look towards having a kid without wondering who they will be, the various ways you will (or maybe won’t) impact their lives, and why you (and everyone you know and love) have turned out the way they did.  There are no concrete answers, but it’s fun to wonder about how I can pass on the “great” (in my opinion) things about me/my family/our culture while averting passing on the “not-so-great” ones!  I know a huge part of it is out of my control, but it is still fun to think about the things I want to teach the next generation—and definitely helps offset the frustration I feel when I see so many kids these days so deeply ensconced in the unhealthy ways of our current culture.  It will be exciting to see how it all pans out.

But til then, I’ll just enjoy this last month, try to appreciate the rain and fog (maybe all the sun is saving itself for June and July, just for me, right?), and focus on the tasks at hand, whether they are finishing up a big work project, reorganizing the garage to fit our new Costco goods, or just putting my feet up for an hour.  June will be here before I know it.  

I love window seats and clear days.

This photo has been taken a million times… but on one of the first sunny days in spring, how can you not pull your camera out just one more time?? Just in case the clouds come back the next day… (which they invariably did!)

Some photos from “camping” on the boat in early March.  What I really wanted to take pictures of was the sky at night, but I forgot my cameras and only had my phone, and even with a fancy camera and a tripod, we figured the boat was moving just enough that you wouldn’t be able to capture the stars and the milky way well enough.  It was a gloriously starry night, though, and somewhere around 2 am I was woken up by an almost-full moon shining in on me.  The waters were dead calm and the reflections of the stars and moon made it seem more like we were in the midst of them instead of looking up at them.  Those are the moments that make this place so precious.  

this song just came on Pandora a little bit ago, and it fit today so well that I thought I’d put it on here.  I can’t quite say *how* it fits exactly, but it seems to capture that calm, sweet, and yet sad and nostalgic vibe that has been flittering around my head for the past day or two.

There is never a day that I don’t miss someone.  No matter how great, exciting, awesome or awful my day might be, there is always someone—or many someones—whom I think of and miss.  It’s a little amazing to me how bittersweet life can be.  But I can never get too sad without becoming overwhelmed at how lucky I am to love so many people, and be so loved myself.  

I woke up Sunday to clear skies, so before I even ate breakfast, I headed out the door with my camera in hand.  It is nice to have little spots right near the house that I can go, not see anyone, and just shoot for a while.

 probably an old saying, i have no idea who said it