Fairbanks
After a couple of days, being there began to eat away at me.
There is still a small town underlying the pseudo-urban facade, a frontier town of stark buildings and insular people. It has been nearly two decades since I last lived there, but a lot of pain remains, just below the surface.
There are bittersweet memories of those who were a part of my life at that time...Kisa, Heather, Rick--and who are no more, or who have gone on to other lives. One morning, Mom told me I was welcomed to take the car and go visiting, and I told her that most of the time, it is good for the past to remain in the past. I would certainly have said "Hi," to Rick if I'd run into him, but why seek him out? I have nothing to do with his life now--and he has nothing to offer me. Why walk back into someone's life like a re-animated corpse?
Maybe moving away from Fairbanks was one of the saner accidents of my life.
There was, under the pedestrian grime and smog and homely sprawl something that could still beguile. Maybe it was just an after-image of the past. We walked out of a resturant Thursday night to a display of the aurora that could have dropped a person to their knees. Yet the beauty is frightening in a way, a reminder of the forces that drive the universe and how little the affairs of humans matter in the long run.
There is still a small town underlying the pseudo-urban facade, a frontier town of stark buildings and insular people. It has been nearly two decades since I last lived there, but a lot of pain remains, just below the surface.
There are bittersweet memories of those who were a part of my life at that time...Kisa, Heather, Rick--and who are no more, or who have gone on to other lives. One morning, Mom told me I was welcomed to take the car and go visiting, and I told her that most of the time, it is good for the past to remain in the past. I would certainly have said "Hi," to Rick if I'd run into him, but why seek him out? I have nothing to do with his life now--and he has nothing to offer me. Why walk back into someone's life like a re-animated corpse?
Maybe moving away from Fairbanks was one of the saner accidents of my life.
There was, under the pedestrian grime and smog and homely sprawl something that could still beguile. Maybe it was just an after-image of the past. We walked out of a resturant Thursday night to a display of the aurora that could have dropped a person to their knees. Yet the beauty is frightening in a way, a reminder of the forces that drive the universe and how little the affairs of humans matter in the long run.
