Arizona Dreaming

It's been a month and I still haven't unpacked from Arizona.


The winter is beautiful here--frost-coated twigs against the dark foliage of the spruce, the subtle colors of sky and snow and cloud in the glancing light of the southernly sun--but in my heart, I am ready to go to Arizona.

It is as if once I realized that I didn't actually have to live here until I DIE to be a "real" Alaskan, I was free to let go and give in to the inevitable.  I'm not sure right now if it is really that important to me to "be" an Alaskan.  There's that certain cachet that we all love (and won't admit it) but aside from that, what is there to keep me here but my tie to the land.  And the land will be there even if I am not.  It will be mine for as long as I want it.  I can even come back here to die in my old age if I want.

But right now, it seems that moving to Arizona has been inevitable and with my typical contrariness, I have been resisting.  I refused for many years to even visit my parents.  I must have known on some level that if I went there, I would never escape it.   And the first time I visited my parents, I knew.  I can't put it into words, but I knew.