a tall personality

The day started out so good. Smoothie bowl with fruit from a little local bakery This view for breakfast. We went down to the dock to board our boat, which was supposed to be a really nice tourist boat.  Clean, cabins with AC, nice places to louge in the shade, the works.  But instead we boarded  a pirate ship.   Probably. The guy who ran the tour company put us on the boat and sent us on our way before we really had the presence of mind to ask questions. After a rocky and worrisome departure where the engine kind of worked and the youngest crew member was swimming in the water to pull the boat...we looked around.  No AC. Broken fans.  Bugs all over the mattresses.  Dirty boat.  Nowhere to sit, just a big box in the middle of the boat, and an upper deck for scorching yourself with the equatorial sun if you so chose.  Crew that did not speak English. OK wait what oops.  Save us. I have worked on boa...

After resting in Jakarta, learning how to use money, not drink water, call a taxi, say thank you in Indonesian Chelsea and I confidently headed for the town of Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores.  It's a little fishing village that has semi-recently exploded with tourism because it's a major port city for anyone wanting to visit the islands home to the Komodo Dragons.  (Why people want to go to Bali rather than visit Komodo Dragons is beyond me!).  Turns out when small towns in third world countries explode with tourism it does not always come out looking like a resort...They have a little airport, a harbor, and main-street lined with businesses while the physical infrastructure seems to be crumbling under the unplanned-for heavy traffic.  It's very interesting and in many respects a lovely place. Chels and I had a plan to land in Labuan Bajo early in the morning, and get on a boat that same day that would take us to some beautiful islands, feed us, drop ...

On the plane from Hong King to Jakarta I sat next to an Indonesian woman who spoke a little English and helped me fill out the customs form since the English translation didn't make a lot of sense.  I thought I had a certain thing that is very normal and legal to have in the US that apparently is NOT OK to have in Indonesia, and can be punished by the death penalty (turns out I didn't have it, but I didn't know that until later).  I showed the woman the word for what I had in Indonesian and she looked at me horrified and said, "You're going to have biiigggg problems!"  Well, I spent the rest of the flight petrified, thinking about the movie "A Brokedown Palace" and spending the rest of my life in prison in a third world country. Turns out it's not terribly hard to get through Indonesian customs, and no one looked at or in my bags, or at my customs form.  And I figured out later that I didn't have anything that was a problem.  But I was s...

A cheap ticket to Indonesia means loooonnnnngggg layovers which is why I had about 8 hours to kill in Seattle.  I took the train to Chinatown in search of ramen.  I found a place, but the moment I stepped inside and the door with the little bells on it shut behind me, every ounce of my intuition told me I was taking up too much space.  (I was wearing a backpack strapped to another backpack with a raincover over it, so I was somewhat conspicuously bigger than my regular size.) There was an insistent sign declaring patrons should wait to be seated.  I stood in the doorway eyeing the only empty table, hoping the host would soon notice me and end my occupation of the most inconvenient space imaginable. Water dripped off the rain-cover of my backpack which I shifted around to avoid sprinkling on other diners in the crowded hole-in-the-wall place.  However, the shifting resulted in even more water spraying off my pack and jacket.  I endured the death stares fro...

The nurse was in regular clothes, which probably means she had come in on her day off.  It was her turn to speak at the supportive gathering of medical caregivers. She looked nervously at the physical therapist, her co-worker, beside her.  The physical therapist had her arm around the back of the nurse’s chair, was leaning forward, nodding encouragingly, dripping with emotional support.  As she opened her mouth her emotions pulled her back, hesitated her.  The redness grew around her eyes and her voice faltered.  She took a breath and whooshed it out between pursed lips.  She looked down, then out to nowhere in particular and let herself remember. We listening caregivers leaned in.  Our bodies spoke in a chorus of the loudest language, “We are here for you.  Speak your pain, speak your truth.  We will metabolize your words with love, and we will catch you as they fall.”  An unscripted story tumbled from her, more raw than she inten...

Dear Alaska, You are so lovely. And in you I am a snow princess.  When I read about you in books, when I see pictures of sled dogs in hotels, when I sing the state song, I cry.  You are in my blood and my bones. I had a notion wrapped in dreams, hopes, anticipation, anxiety, and stress...a notion that when I came back to you I would understand why I felt like I was always different.  The differences would feel erased, I would finally be home. But you know what?  I found out...I also feel different here.   You know who I am like?  Not Alaskans, not Mormons, not Alaskan Mormons,  not people from small towns, not even necessarily my best friends (all people I previously thought I was like)...you know who I have found I might actually be most like?  MY PARENTS. Yep.   My parents are two of the most unique people I have ever met. Being like my parents means I will forever be different.  I'm proud of that...no...

The laughter coming from the cockpit was laced alarmingly with frustration. I could see the opposite propeller turning slowly in the shiny reflection of the airplane outside my little window. Turning slowly is not what you want to see from a propeller. Disgruntled grumbles just loud enough to bridge the 'I actually meant for everyone to hear that' gap were coming from the ten other passengers on the flight. "This plane was JUST flying fine, what the **!##! Happened?" My mind clicked into worst case scenario mode. I evaluated the abilities of the people seated in the exit rows. Maybe I should have taken one of those seats. I trust myself to be strong and confident enough to save everyone. But what if I panicked and died in a plane crash with blood on my hands? Yeah, that would be worse. Thankfully, the pilots were noticing the malfunction as the plane was still safely on the ground at the Valdez airport. The people who make decisions were deciding if it could be fixed ...

Dearest Alaska, You know I love you.  You are giving me family, friends, fun, and a down-home feeling that I just never found in the lower 48.  Even when I was so happy and at home in Salt Lake. It just didn't compare. Monday, it snowed on your mountains and you gave me a wonderful time hiking up running down, and freaking out about how overwhelmingly beautiful it was. This Tuesday you gave me a SUPER cool show called Arctic Entries where 7 people tell 7 minute stories about something that happened to them, much in the style of This American Life (one of my favorite radio shows).  I was so inspired I decided to apply to be in a future show...and they called me back. Wednesday I went sculling (rowing with 4 people in a skinny skinny boat) with my Aunt Peggy.  The weather was perfect, the boat was kinda fast.  A float plane landed next to us.  It was mesmerizing and wonderful Thursday I went climbing with my BFAW (that's best friend at work) ...

Alaska continues to be pretty interesting to say the least. but When all these things happen to me I can think of a million wonderful things to say about them, but later on Sunday when I am actually trying to write I find myself out of the energy it would take to make it awesome.  I think, "Oh, I'll just wait until I FEEL like writing something good," but we all know that only happens once every few months and by that time I hardly remember what all the pictures I took were about. So instead I'll just describe each picture and call it an update.  In a few months I'll write something good again :) Here is beautiful Elise on Skilak Lake!  We took her guitar on a little hike and were having a good time playing and singing on this beach...when we noticed a group of rafters pulled up close by for lunch.  Eh, no big deal, we keep going.  Then these young red-headed fishermen came tromping out of the woods, and set up quite quite close, frequently ...

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh"  Ezekiel 36:26 KJV I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 11 years ago last month;  7 years later  I opened an essay about that event with the above scripture.   I rejoiced in how my closeness to the Savior had given me a new heart.   I also said this, " If someone had tried to explain to me the kind of peace and happiness I feel now, I wouldn't have believed them.  I didn't know you  could  feel this."   I   had been through some rough times by that point and had managed to bounce back from them.  I had consistently experienced the promise of the comfort of the Holy Ghost whenever I asked for it.  The scriptures made sense, prayers were answered in the ways I anticipated.  And when they weren't there were comf...

As many have asked, here's how Alaska has been so far, in pictures. My little brother gave me the most awesome birthday present of fixing up my bike from high school. I took it out today and it works perfect!  I rode around this pretty lake that has apparently very dangerous beavers (see sign below) There was a moose heart in my parent's fridge I found some awesome friends who will go climbing and then for a run all together after work #likeawolfpack Oh, and there's this guy.  Ku (pronounced 'Q') is the sweetest, cuddliest dog and I love him forever. And the guy holding him is pretty fun too :) All in all, Alaska still feels like home.  I love it here, and I'm SO glad I came back (at least for a while)!