Currently: April

Currently living/working: I had two shifts for the library this month, so clearly my winter work is winding down. Plus I was only in AK for 14/30 days, so there’s that logistical detail. With that being said, both of us have had writing projects this month, Justin is still doing his Visitor Center work & we had our first yurt rental! With summer’s unrelenting productivity hot on our heels, we tried to enjoy the last bits of rest and freedom … 

Current mood: The direct hit of the sun’s warmth during my travels cured my vitamin D deficiency and charged me up! 

Currently amazed by: Back in January, we were calling the month April-uary because the weather was so warm & snowless. Our seasons are always an unsynchronized dance with each other, and winter showed up fashionably late. More than a foot of snow fell in our area in April, with the largest one-day dump we had all winter. Most of the month felt more like January, but the upside was being able to get a few bonus skis in! However, now that it’s all melting, mud is crawling out from the Earth and ends up in every crevice of our existence. 

Currently not excited for: For the 3rd time this month, I just flew across the country. I do not recommend ping ponging between time zones and taking multiple red-eye flights for anyone in their 40s. My ears still haven’t popped. It’s obviously the tradeoff to living in Alaska, but oy vey.  

Currently worried about: There are lots of ways to live with hardship. You can be enraged, sad, guilty, isolated, terrified, thankful, apathetic, embarrassed … I’m discovering all of those. My sister & I keep getting pranked by the universe as my mom continues to defy the odds in the medical world and something we need to do for her seems to come up weekly. April in particular brought all sorts of fun events for her (and inevitably us). We were going to take advantage of hospice’s 5 days of “respite” care at a facility while my sister went away on spring break. Guess what? It’s not really respite for the caregivers when you have to transport 25 tanks of oxygen, write out the med schedule and hope that the care facility gets it right, worry about her trying to sneak out to smoke in between the 4 designated smoking times … Hence, that was one of my unexpected trips East so my sister could actually get a true respite. And yes, I am wrapping my discontent in gratitude because I’m getting bonus visits with my mom, but I assure you it is both a blessing and a curse for an empath like myself. When I’m next to her, I’m transported back to a place of helplessness as she barely can take 10 steps with legs/feet so bloated they are rock hard and lungs that maybe have a capacity of 15%, which makes breathing becomes a luxury. (PS-did you know the “tobacco rate” in CT is higher than in NJ? We didn’t, until my mom’s health insurance monthly premium doubled.) PSPS-sorry not sorry for my rambling rant! 

Currently proud of: My travel memoir Between Each Step is always my background passive income. I’ve consistently received a royalty check from my publisher every 3 months for books sales via small and big (Amazon) book distribution sites. “Royalty Check” sounds fancy, until you realize it’s barely enough to buy 2 dozen eggs. Living the dream, I suppose. In any case, this past quarter, I sold 34 books according to my royalty check! Which is a lot for one quarter since the book is 5.5 years old. I can directly correlate the sales to the timing of the Backpacker Radio podcast. This podcast is so incredibly popular within the backpacking world. I hardly talked about my book during the 2-hr interview (I don’t grovel well), but it was just reaching the right audience who didn’t know the book existed. 

Current confession: Since taking over my mother’s affairs and streamlining/organizing them in a way that made sense to me, I have this unhealthy fixation on the legacy of what I leave behind. Erasing someone else’s life is a little bit of a mindF%&$. As a coping mechanism that made me feel a little better, I pared down, sorted & filed a lot of stuff this winter, and I finally finished this project this week. Consolidating several photo albums was the most burdensome, as 20+ years of my life were in the era before cell phones when we printed a plethora of useless photos.

Currently thankful for: Justin is currently on ANOTHER press trip, this time with Victorinox (makers of the original Swiss Army knife) at AutoCamp Catskills NY staying in a swanky Airstream, going fly fishing and eating off the dreamiest charcuterie board I’ve ever seen (Justin barely eats red meat & nuts and no cheese, but I would be in heaven). 

Currently regretting: Shall I say not timing my living on the East Coast with having to tend to my mom’s affairs? We lived in VA from 2004-2007, NH from 2007-2011 and VA from 2011-2013, but of course now I’m conveniently 4,000 miles away. I’m still stuck on how much I am hating these cross-country flights! This month was just a lot.

Currently excited for: In spite of summer being a grind with our multiple jobs (I think I am up to 6 this year?), I’m fired up for it. We’re in a twisted club—those who survive the hardships of winter so we  enjoy a few weeks (hopefully months) of summer with daylight, color & warmth. 

Current guilty pleasure: We spent 3 glorious nights at our yurt while getting it ready for the season. Despite only being 1/10 mile from our cabin, it always feels like we are on vacation, mainly because we are not surrounded by our junk!

Currently reading: I may just read more fiction this year than nonfiction! 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingslover was a book club pic, and holy hell that was heavy. Basically the protagonist can’t catch a break between losing his parents, the foster system failing him and placing him in the worst “homes,” and coming of age during the opioid crisis.  When  people—albeit fictional—can emerge battle-scarred but wiser, stronger, and fuller of love and hope, it’s so inspirational to me.

I’ve been fascinated by the Panama Canal for some time, though I know very little about it. A friend suggested The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez, and it was the perfect teaser to educate myself through historical fiction. Written in third person perspective of multiple characters, the book was definitely more of a novelization of the people connected to the canal in some way—from the laborer’s point of view to the activists’ point of view. I think the most shocking history lesson I learned: America just stormed in and “helped” Panama gain independence from Columbia, but with the alternate goal of slicing through their country to create access and economic opportunities. Wow. In any case, it was a worthwhile read with less history and more personal stories. My challenge with the book is that there were too many characters, too little character development. 

Cabin Stories: The Best of Dark Winter Nights Stories from Alaska by Rob Prince has been on my nightstand all winter borrowed from my uncle and I finally checked it off. Very quick read, and I think my favorite story is when a bear got stuck in someone’s arctic entrance for hours. Only in Alaska … Dark Winter Nights is actually a live storytelling event in Fairbanks and a podcast. 

Currently watching on Netflix/Peacock: I feel like Justin & I were not together a whole lot this month due to travels, so we didn’t watch any series together, except for the weekly releases of new Survivor and Below Deck episodes!