Roots

Picture courtesy of the late and dearly missed Joe Leahy

My Mom used to pay us a dime for each dandelion we kids could uproot in our yard. She explained that you have to follow the root deep into the soil to get every little bit out, or else they sprout again. More often than not, the stubborn roots stretched further into the soil than I could dig, so I ripped out all I could and tried to fulfill Mom's directions by chopping at the remaining strands of root clinging to the depths of the soil.  When roots are deep enough, they have to break when it comes time to dig them out.  There's no way to remove the plant from its roots AND keep it whole.

That's how I feel now.  I just arrived in Provo from what may be my last trip to my roots, Valdez, for quite some time.  I took advantage of all the time I had on the plane ride back to the "Lower 48", as we semi-affectionately call it, to write my feelings.  Here are a few snippets.  A lot of them are about family stuff that might not be as fascinating to everyone as they are to me, so don't feel bad if you skip some!

1:30 pm Valdez, AK 

My parents sold our house. That made it harder to leave than it has ever been. I'm glad I came home, even though it has been the saddest to leave. I wonder when I'll be back...if I'll be back. How can you leave something that is as much a part of your heart and soul as Alaska is of mine? I don't know, but somehow I do. Every time I leave I feel like I'm tearing my heart out, even though I know staying would do the same, just in a slower way.

Annie, Casey and me at Halloween a million years ago in the old house that's not ours anymore

This has been one of the best Christmases, I think only my mission Christmases can compare. Since the snow was bad in Valdez (bad means hard packed and blown over so there was no snowboarding) I got to spend a lot more time than usual with my lifelong friends Elise and Elizabeth and my brother Casey who are all usually at the Pass the whole time! Instead we went ice skating on Robe Lake or at the Valdez Glacier every day for the first few days. At Robe the ice was polished smooth from the wind so that you could see the reflection of the mountains in it. I forgot that the mountains are splashed with sunset all day long in the winter. It was beautiful, and I felt like I belonged there again.

Robe Lake Troopers!  Daniel, Casey, Elise

The ice there was smooth, and much of it frosted. There were little patches of clear ice which when you suddenly skated across and looked down, it looked like you were skating on nothing at all. The first time I was surprised by one I panicked for a second, and then realized it was just as thick as all the other ice (maybe a foot), and it was pretty silly to be scared to skate on it. Casey whizzed past me chuckling at my moment of panic. As I tried to catch up to him I thought to myself “I'm actually not too scared of falling in the ice...not because I don't think I'll fall in the ice, but because if I did, I'm pretty sure Casey could save me.”

Easer and hat

Casey and me

Like a mirror

At the Valdez glacier we skated through little alleys formed between massive ice bergs frozen in the lake. Some were frosty white, and some were deep clear blue, the way tidewater glacier ice looks when it has just turned over in the water.  It's a blue that can't be captured by a crayola crayon.  It's opaque and transluscent at the same time, like the ocean; though the water is clear but you can't see to the bottom of the sea.  The place had the feeling of the dancing whale scene in Fantasia 2000.

Liz cross country ice skating to ice cave

Finding ice cave

"chillin" in the ice cave (Elise's picture)

Don't know if you knew, but it is BLUE in ice caves!

Inside ice cave looking out

One day Casey and I brought a couple of sleds up to the face of the glacier, which had steep, hard packed drifts of snow all the way from its top to the ice below. We switched our skates for boots, and dragged the sleds up the top of the glacier, not sure yet if this was a good idea or a really bad one. Casey went first on a little plastic orange saucer. The ice in front of the glacier was buckled because, as Dad explained to me, "glaciers keep moving forward in the winter too, ya know".  We were a little worried about the jolt the buckle might cause, but Casey took off on his sled anyway. He shot down the steep drift, over the bumps at the bottom, and across the lake like it was a frictionless world. He was     hooting, “HA HOOO!!! YEEEE HAAWW!” and spinning around. A giggle fit seized me partly because I loved seeing Casey so thrilled, and partly because I was a little nervous to take my turn. I could just picture my boot catching, flipping my sled, landing on my head on the ice, breaking my skull open, and Casey having to rescue my foolish self. After a few seconds of thinking I determined that if I kept it up, I would never go. I tried to erase the pictures from my imagination and sat down in the in the little plastic toboggan. That was the act of commitment; there was no chance of stopping or slowing down at that point!  Before I had time to worry about the bumps at the bottom of the glacier, I was shooting across the lake still laughing like I was crazy! Turns out it was a mostly good idea. We were all smiles but decided not to do too much more of it because it was not so comfortable on our backsides.

Both Casey and I (probably Annie too but she wasn't there) seem to have inherited the ice skater gene. My dad played hockey during his growing up years and always skated circles around us.  You would think that growing up in Alaska, we would have gone ice skating a lot.  I've probably been ten times in my life. There was no skating rink in Valdez and the lakes were usually covered six feet deep with snow. For some reason though, both Casey and I inherited dad's ability to just get out there and go! 

Casey and I went cross country skiing one day on the Mineral Creek trails. It had been at least a year since I'd gone.  Casey might have gone once or twice more than me, but that kid was fast! By the time we made the first 1.5k I was winded and tired and Casey was waiting for me to catch up. We had a great time though, the trails were beautiful, though the snow wasn't great. Since I'm usually kind of scaredy cat, Casey teased me, “now Sarah, we only have two big hills on this course so you have to try to go really fast down both of them!” knowing that if he hadn't made fun of me a little, I would have snowplowed to slow myself down.  On the second hill there is a hairpin turn at the bottom. Casey stopped there to wait for me, I think to make sure I didn't crash into the snowbank...or to witness it for a more accurate retelling if I did. I made it around the corner but just barely. At times like that I feel like Casey is my older brother (really I'm older). I'm so glad the snow was bad for snowboarding so I got to spend time with him.

Time with Elise and Liz was priceless too!  But we were missing a few pieces of the Valdez crew (Kaela and Katie to name a few).  I'll never be able to explain how much I love those girls, and will always be connected to them. I've had a lot of great friends that I've drifted away from. Proximity and convenience friends, though true at the time. These girls are nothing of the sort. I miss them the most when I'm at home and they're not, but they're always a part of my life no matter how long between times we talk. The only people who know my life better than them are my sister, or Heavenly Father. A side of me comes out with them that doesn't seem to show itself with anyone else.  These are the people who made me the way I am. Meeting someone who shares my love for the outdoors isn't like being with the people who discovered it with me, and we watched it develop in each other every step of the way.

 Left: Me and Liz in the ol' Synchro days!

Right: Cliff jumping with Maggles in bygone days.  Yes, we are jumping into a lake with ice in it :)

Flat top with Katie Bryson

One of the best parts of this trip were the nightly family card games! Most of the nights in Valdez we'd start to play around 8:30 or 9 and finish at midnight- it was SERIOUS quality time!  Since there were only had 4 of us we could play Pinochle without anyone being left out! We play with lots of table talk, of hooting and hollering over a double pinochle or aces around and a run dealt in one hand, or 5 nines, or a stretch of bad hands, or winking at your partner if you came in diamonds so they'd know to pass you the queen of spades. When dad was dealt a double pinochle we had to stop the game for a good 5 minutes to admire and take a picture/video.  Mom and I won the most as partners, which was kind of a miracle because I'm about half as good as anyone else in my family, and they all know it. I can't count cards during play, I mix up suits, I pass my meld to my partner, and I consistently overbid my hand (all of that only means something to people who play, I know).  But everyone was still nice to me when we were done :)  It was some of the best family time we have spent together in a long time.

When Dad laid down his double Pinochle

Leaving the house was harder than it has ever been. I knew it was the last time I'd ever be in it as my house.  So I did a final walk through.  This is the part I would think only my family might be interested to read.
Living room:
We used to have friends over to watch movies or play games and my mom would bring out the popcorn and crackers for us. Annie and I used to do Tae-bo there, or have late-night dance parties. The awkward bathroom in the middle of the house with no fan, I won't miss that too much. The chairs where mom and dad sat every night and read their books, and where I used to curl up and take a nap if I got ready for school earlier than everyone else. The computer desk, we had so many fights about time on computers. I wasted so much time there. I wouldn't repeat it, but it still was a part of my past.
Kitchen:
 The huge huge kitchen with the big yellow trashcan right in the middle. One side of the counters covered with letters, magazines, and everything we didn't really have a place for and but weren't ready to throw away. The other half of the counters were for cooking. They were usually less cluttered though not quite clean. I remember the old orange counter tops, now they're kind of a whitish speckled with pink and gray. The kind of nondescript counters you don't remember except to say they looked nice. I remember thinking maybe we could keep our house tidier when we got the new carpet, new couches and chairs, new countertop, and kitchen floor...but the Wilcox clutter survived it all and I don't expect it will be going away soon. It's not a dirty house, but anything that is used more than once a month is out in plain sight so you never have to go digging around for it. If we know we'll use it, we just leave it out. The dining room with its bulging wood flooring. When we first put it in we used to wash and wax it once a week.   I loved the big south facing windows upstairs. You could watch the sun rise and set all day long in the winter, or sit and watch it never rise or set in the summer. We used to lay down on the living room floor in the precious and rare beams of sunlight cast through the windows to take naps. It was my cat's favorite place too.
Downstairs:

I went down the stairs, I know instinctively where each light switch is, and the exact length of each stair, how to step on them so they don't creak. I know you can jump down almost all of the last staircase without making much of a sound because you land on solid ground at the bottom.
Annie's room:

The room that I took over when she went to college. Her wall shared a wall with the garage where the heater was so it was the warmest room in the house. I used to go in there when I couldn't sleep, and she would let me sleep on her floor, or talk to her until we were both too tired to keep our eyes open. We did it less and less as we got older, but when we did it usually lasted late into the night. I loved growing up in the same house as my best friend. This was the room where I cried and cried when Annie and Eric left for college. I cried and cried about the tension in the house over religion. I cried and cried and prayed to know what was true, and what was the right thing to do as a result. My cat was my best friend through a lot of that time. He didn't mind being my buddy through it all. He died a few years ago and honestly, coming home has never been the same.

My room:
Annie and I shared it when we first moved into the house and Mom and Dad were sheet-rocking the other rooms. She was clean and organized and I was always a mess. Many times we decided to split the room in half...except the dresser...and the door. Or maybe one of us could use the door and the other could use the window. We used to stay up late in the night and play games and sing songs, thinking the wall we shared with our parents' room was somehow impermeable to noise because it was so late. She told me what kindergarten and first grade were like and I couldn't wait to go. I was already going to know everything to do and say because my sister told me about it. While we shared that room, Annie also lied to mom and told her I always snored at night, which factored into the decision of me having my tonsils removed! She never showed any remorse, it just turned into a funny family legend.

Me, Dad and Annie back in the day

When she moved across the hall it became my own room, and it was always MESSY! Mom used to tell me to clean it, and when she insisted and threatened long enough I would resentfully go to my room, choose a pile of stuff and try to organize it. I would inevitably become side tracked, and hours later come upstairs, having forgotten what my task was supposed to be. More than once my mom went through my room and cleaned it for me, or just threw everything away she thought she could without upsetting me. I didn't like cleaning. And I liked my room messy; easier to find things that way, I always said. I remember stenciling in the horse designs on the walls with my mom. Horses were my favorite animal and it was exciting to have them all over my room! Sally Winchester, one of my babysitters and role models, made a huge horse collage with me which stayed on the wall for years. I love the sliding glass doors to the closet. I love the sink and vanity built into the room. I would never move back and live there, but I wish it was still sort of mine, and didn't belong to Devin Reiss, though I'd rather it be him than someone I didn't know at all.
Under the stairs:

The little room under the stairs was one of my favorite places at one time. It's not even big enough to stand up in, but mom put a light in and at one point it had shelves of books! There were pillows and sleeping bags on the floor, and it was our own little reading room and library. I went through a time in elementary school when I would lay awake at night, unable to sleep for some reason. I used to spend hours and hours in there reading all the books. My favorites were Where the Red Fern Grows, and Beauty. I read books and books and books about horses.  There was the Misty series about horses on Chicoteague and Asateague Islands off the coast of Virginia. There were the saddle club books, and the encyclopedia of horses. I poured over every breed, read all their facts and dreamed about what I would do with each different one. I read about the tack, and how to take care of it, about horse racing, jumping, dressage, but my favorite were wild horses. I still love them and wish I had more actual experience with them. I don't know if I have the guts to do all the work horses require, but I like to think I do, and I would LOVE to have some horses one day.

I glanced in the back yard. The rows and rows of raspberries. We used to jump on the tramp with our friends and periodically take raspberry breaks. The only problem was there were often bees by the raspberries. We kept our boats in the back yard for a while, a couple each of canoes and rafts. They've since been sold or more responsibly stored, but I remember moving them around to mow the lawn. Mom put hinges on a few of the fence boards so that we could get to the neighbor's house by going through the backyard instead of walking down the street and around the block. We had great times playing 'war' in our backyards because of those hinged fence panels. Crispin's dog house my mom built used to be back there too. We had a good time playing on, in, and around that too, and often incorporated it into our games as 'home base'. As we got older we started having 'Maytag' parties in the back yard. We took the inside of a Maytag washing machine out and set it in our backyard, making a perforated but controlled fire pit we could move anywhere we wanted to! We often invited our friends and neighbors over and set out the 15 folding chairs we have so we could all sit around the fire, chat, and eat barbecued salmon and raspberries off the bushes.

The garage, oh I will miss having a giant heated storage unit attached to my house. It was big enough for 2 cars, if you could stack them on top of one another. We hung our bikes from the ceiling. I think we're just down to 3 bikes now, we used to have 8 or 10 probably. The shelves of the garage are cleaned out (something I've NEVER even dreamed of). Dad fixed the uneven stairs and rickety railing.  They're actually safe for children, now that they have no children and are selling the house.  We had a good laugh about that!

Pictures of the sunset on the way to Anchorage to catch my plane home

Are my parents really ready to sell the house and leave Valdez? I guess it's not for me to decide. I have already thrown my share of fits about it.  One for each time they considered leaving Valdez while I was growing up. I'm so glad we stayed and I got to spent almost all of my childhood in that magical wonderful place.  Certainly I am not ready for them to leave. I know I'll still go back there.   I have more 'family' in Valdez than I have actual blood relatives.   Also, the mountains are mine, the harbor, the beach, and the port are mine. The lakes are mine, the trails are mine, the sky is mine, the rivers are mine, and I'm theirs. How can I stay away?

Me near Shoup Glacier Spring '04