Currently: May

Currently living/working: May was busier than we both anticipated. Justin had 2 weeks of training, but I had a bit more because not only did I myself attended training sessions, I also led quite a few training sessions for the new Alaska Geographic staff. I keep chasing that perfect summer balance of work & play, but May front loaded with extra work. 

Current mood: Busy!!!! But happy! 

Current guilty pleasure: Justin & I are currently on our first Disney Cruise through Alaska’s Inside Passage as guest naturalist speakers!!! (I described how this came about in the April Currently post). I will do a full download of the experience once I have time to process, but so far, so good! 

Currently worried about: Justin rocked 1 of our 4 cruise presentations solo today, but of course I am a ball of nerves for mine, even though I’ve probably given 300 presentations in my life at this point. We are tag-teaming 2 on Tuesday morn, then I have a solo one on Wednesday.

Currently regretting: May was ceaselessly cold, like winter was holding a death grip on us. We usually have a few false starts of beautiful days in May, but all we had was wind, grey and too many occasional snow showers. This last week, the plant life experienced a slow awakening, finally showing signs of unfurling. So there is hope that summer in Alaska exists.  

Currently proud of: I’ve been on Lexapro (anxiety med) since 2020. I initially went on it because my anxiety felt … unhinged. I spent far too many sleepless nights overthinking everything, grasping for control. In retrospect, it makes sense. I was going through perimenopause, and my nervous system was getting stuck in survival mode revolving around years of caring for sick loved ones. Justin had 3 surgeries from 2016-2018. Shortly thereafter, my dad spent several weeks in the hospital, followed by 90 days in a rehab facility and 3 weeks on hospice, dying in Feb. 2019. I stepped in to manage my mom & her household. I was burned out on caregiving and jaded from managing other people’s details. Lexapro got me through this very hard stage of life. Now that my parents have died, and Justin is as healthy as he can be, I’m not sure I need that pharma help anymore. So I went off Lexapro this month (with permission from my doctor). My thought process is I can always go back on if life becomes unbearable again! But I’ve learned a lot about myself, my limits, my boundaries, my emotional regulation, and I feel like I have the tools I need for right now. 

Currently amazed by: I’ve always heard that grieving follows no clock or calendar. For the past 3 months since my mom died, I felt relief mostly. But I’ve been very weepy about my mom this month! Maybe it’s because I went off my Lexapro … regardless, my first Motherless Mother’s Day hit hard. 

Current confession: I was really honored to be involved with AK Geographic’s training this season because I weirdly enjoy ushering people into the Denali world. The life of a seasonal worker is absurd: You arrive (it’s cold & snowy), we blast you with a fire hose of information, you spend 3.5 months frantically trying to function, then you disappear back to civilization. It’s kind of amazing that it all works. And the new AK Geo team of science educators are absolutely delightful humans. But whoa. Handholding was a lot of freaking work—more than I ever anticipated.  I always said in my multiple jobs I never wanted to manage people, and this was a reminder of why my leadership style remains supportive from a safe distance. 

Currently not excited for: Spring syncs with the birth cycles of most of our wildlife, which is lovely, but it also means moose, snowshoe hare, porcupines, ptarmigan, squirrels—have traffic priority as they explode in population along our roadsides. 

Currently thankful for: Potholes (craters) are a fundamental part of life in Interior Alaska. So I was elated when the Department of Transportation filled nearly all the potholes on our road (as well as other roads in our community) so quickly this spring! They will be back by the end of the summer, but it’s nice to have a break from driving erratically to avoid them. We are already dodging wildlife & seasonal workers on our road. 

Currently excited for: Since I’m not guiding hikes, I’m envisioning reclaiming the trails for myself, slipping out either on my lunch break in the park or before I head home. 

Currently reading:

I mentioned my friend/colleague Heather Balogh Rochert just published Women Who Hike National Parks: Walking With America’s Most Inspiring Adventurers, and featured lil old me as one of the 17 women in the book! It is always nice to learn more about the women I admire! Request it from your library if you want to read a few pages about me 🙂 

Jill Homer is a badass blogosphere acquaintance whom I’ve never met, but I love her writing. She’s authored 7 (?) books, of which I’ve read 2. Many of her books are self-published, and they are a little hard to get my hands on. But I have some pull at our library, so I requested we buy Becoming Frozen: Memoir of a First Year. It’s about Jill’s first year living in Homer, AK, and the beginning of her drive to become an endurance racer. Alaska either steals people’s souls, or kicks their a$%, and it did a little of both for Jill. She went all in on the hard bits of Alaska life. It was great insight into her addiction to adventure, so since I’ve been following her for years, I appreciated the back story. 

Justin & I have been listening on our drives to Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All- Women’s Ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall. It’s about the six all-women summit of Denali on July 6, 1970. I thought I knew a lot about Denali, but I never heard about this group before the book. Holy crap, there was so much sexism back then, so these women deserve so much praise for what they endured. They had a heck of a climb. The amount of research that went into this book is admirable, but I will say it was easy to get lost in the details and all the different names/histories. 

Currently watching on Netflix/Peacock: We watched an absolutely horrible limited series on Netflix, so here is my warning to skip Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. But there have been some fantastic movies that made up for that complete waste of time, including Apex (on Netflix), Eden (Netflix) and The Marsh King (Peacock).