Ice Climbing

I fell in love with Alaska all over again while strolling upon a rush of glacier melt on Matanuska Glacier. My crampons dug into a mess of ice, snow, rock, mud, silt, and water, constantly changing, unlasting. Like life. There's so much to learn on a glacier. Black ice, for instance, is camouflaged beneath all the water and mud and rock and white ice. If you happen to step on it, you could slip and fall. You never know what might lie ahead in the field. Glimpse of hope or fear. Beautiful, yet deadly.
The past week of my life has been much the same. The day after Thomas' surgery, I drove with Signe to Homer for the Kachemak Bay Writers' Conference. For those of you who have never heard of this quaint little town on the southern tip of Alaska, it is famous for a spit of land that juts out into the ocean. Many published Alaskan writers live here. Li-Young Lee spent four days with us and then led a post-conference retreat with a dozen writers at the Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge (which I had no idea was a private resort ranging from $1750-$3750 for 2-5 nights). The food was amazing and I was lucky enough to stay in an attic room in the Goosepoint cabin, which the owner had built for his wife. It is perched on the lip of a cliff overlooking China Poot Bay. I felt totally guilty savoring these few precious days of indulgent writing while Thomas had a rough recovery from his injury, the kids got sick, our 7th year anniversary (6/16) blinked by without celebration, and pretty much the house fell to ruin. And then to rub it all in, I had made plans to take Signe ice climbing the day after I returned. I rolled in from Homer on June 19 around midnight and then took off by 6am for Matanuska...I had very little energy to climb since I barely slept the past eight days and I was infused with guilt: Thomas didn't look well (he normally gets stressed out in June and July because of our anniversary, my bday, Kyra's bday and now Ethan's bday stacks on in Aug), Ethan wouldn't look at me, and Kyra I kissed in her sleep.
I had more fun exploring the glacier than climbing it. Love the gear...the ice picks, the crampons, the harness, rubber gloves, ice climbing shoes. Love how two prongs on the front of each foot can hold your entire weight or that you can hang off the tip of your ice pick barely protruding into the ice wall. But it's not as easy it looks. I had a hard time getting my ice picks into the rock hard ice. My friend, Signe, who hates the outdoors by the way, scaled the ice three times (without hardly trying...see video below)!