An evening alone with homemade wine

I sent an email out to an old employer of mine in Fairbanks, among others, and today he responded by telling me drop by the office because he might have some "interesting projects"... at the same time I just got an email from another dear Fairbanks friend telling me that a cabin was available if I should want it. I loved Fairbanks when I was there...but I have never gone back to live some place that I lived before. Even my current standing with my parents feels strange and out of place. But I wonder...if he has funding and has projects, can I see myself back in Fairbanks? So many of the people I knew when I lived there have gone, the emotional landscape has changed, and yet I feel the tug. How strange would it be to live in a cabin, beautifully built by a shipwright, that once housed a long-time boyfriend after we broke up? Of course, dropping by the office will have to be by telephone....

Newfoundland village (2005)

I wonder if I don't have some sort of "escapee" problem - I'm always some place new. At night I dream I took on a job in Newfoundland, doing research in Labrador, and built myself a house on the edge of the sea cliffs. And how does one get farther and stay on the North American continent from Alaska then to go to Newfoundland? For the record I have been there, and the similarities are striking. My mother has a cousin there too...who I have only met the once. I wonder what it is about me that has a ken for these long distant places, these remote isolated areas? Why is it that the places that appeal to me are in the remote arctic or antarctic? When the other half of me craves art and culture and society? Am I running to things or from things? I get away from it all of today's social strings for months on end and can see the tether of my own sanity dissapearing like the broken strings on a guitar, knowing that I must get back to a place with more grounding, with people, and then I'm back with people and society and I feel off kilter and after a few months all I hear is the harkening of those remote places where the soul of me was tested where I thought I'd lose myself forwever never to return.

A very good friend of mine and I had a long discussion once after a particularly harrow raising field season, one where I came back just in the nick of time to confirm that reality had not warped while I was gone. She told me that I seem to look for and apply for things that other people would shy away from. Things that other people would see uncertainty in. This was a valuable insight and I ponder still how to keep myself from the jobs where my colleagues and I are placed in undue danger while still feeding the explorer in me. How do I suss these situations out? How do I tell the difference between bravery and stupidity? Why, when I long to stay in one place cannot I not seem to do so even when the opportunity is in front of me?