Tolerance

Anyone who has known me for more than about five minutes will tell you: I don't like people.

It irks me to no end that I have to share this earth with idiots who put heavy weights on their pitbull puppy's collar (so that it will have a big muscular neck when it grows up!). Or illiterates who can't read the "15 Items or Less" sign on the checkout lane at the grocery store. Or Illiterates who designed the sign in the first place to say "15 Items or Less" rather than "15 Items or Fewer."

 Or people who use poison nerve gas on their own people, or on anybody for that matter. Or, possibly worst of all, drivers who don't use their turn signals.

When I was a little girl, I used to tell people I wanted to be the little old lady whose yard none of the neighborhood kids wanted to enter, even if it meant losing their favorite baseball.

You get the picture.

Nevertheless, I have to live in this world with these other people. And so do they also have to live in this world with me. Furthermore, some of us are also responsible for raising smallish less-developed beings -- for them, children; for me, dogs -- to also peaceably coexist on our little rotating sphere. That's how society works. Or how it's supposed to. Nobody says you have to like it.

Furthermore, it could be argued that most of us don't even have a consistent target for our irritation; it shifts depending on where we ourselves are standing at any given point in time.

... This is a lot of babbling, is it not? What, pray tell, has inspired this vague and nebulous rant, O Blogger?

I'll tell you what: The bike trail in front of my house has opened a new connection segment, turning our peaceful little mile of paved trail from a nice evening walk, run or ski, into a mere intermediate blip on the bike superhighway connecting the neighborhoods of our fair city.

(Not Anchorage.)

(Not Anchorage, either.)

Hooray, some might say! Some (including my husband) would say it's a nice addition to our motorhead city which is otherwise borderline hostile toward cyclists. They might suggest a bike trail adds both safety and property value to our little neighborhood.

However, "they" didn't recently try to take our dogs out on a typical Tuesday night 3-mile jog, our normal course which conveniently starts and ends at our front door, and get run down at every turn by spandex-clad psychos who seem to mistake our little neighborhood for the home stretch on the Champs-Elysées.

Furthermore, in dramatic contrast to these speed demons, there's another trail-user subset appearing: the fitness-walker. Typically occurring in pairs (or more!), these typically elderly folks fan out across the trail and are usually so busy talking that they don't hear a courteous "ahem" or "excuse me" in an effort to pass without startling them; and you can forget the helpful "On your left!" warning, which merely causes them to jump a foot in the air, clutch their hearts, and land all over the trail: left, right and center.

Obviously, the next logical question is: Well, Blogger, what exactly is your perspective on this, then?

And so I have a confession to make: I am a runner, with unleashed dogs!

Yes, that's right, my two dogs run all willy-nilly when we're out on the trail: in the woods, on the trail, off the trail, ahead of me (most of the time), behind me (mostly never), left side, right side. I run three miles, they run nine. Works out great for all of us. (In my own defense, I have been working for nearly four years on leash-training Cashew, but she's a dumb dumb dog, and it usually results in her belly-crawling along next to me as if I'm going to stab her through the heart at any moment. Delightful for all parties, as I'm sure you can imagine.)



But here's the thing: my dogs, other than startling people with their unpredictability (which I totally understand), don't bother anybody. They dodge runners and cyclists with equal aplomb. They tend to regard leashed dogs as something to be avoided at all costs. OK, admittedly, Cashew does love little kids -- they tend to be sloppy and therefore always have something delicious on their faces (go ahead, tell me I'm wrong), but I'm aware of that and "On by!" them whenever there are kids around, and on by they go, leaving the treats behind.

Furthermore, I sympathize with people who don't know what my dogs are going to do -- or what I'm going to do, for that matter. I mean, who hasn't been told, by some idiot who doesn't know the first thing about dog behavior, that her dog is perfectly friendly as it's lungeing, snarling and snapping, at the end of its leash?

So I keep my dogs at a heel position as we run by.

Still, I could do without the dirty looks from all the cyclists and fitness walkers, especially in my own neighborhood where I've lived and quietly walked my dogs, no problem, for fifteen years, thank you very much.

Which is where today's topic of Tolerance comes in. (I know, it's a late reveal. Chalk it up to artistic license.)

I live in Alaska, so I tend to get out a lot. And I see a lot of different types of people out there, enjoying the trails. What connects us is that we all love being outdoors in Alaska and are willing to make some effort to get out there, whether that's on bike, foot, ski, or horse, we chose to include an adventure in today's agenda. Sometimes I think it's the only thing that keeps us from killing each other.

In spite of the signs, however, there's still conflict.

After all, who doesn't want what they want, when they want it? It's only human nature. When I'm in a car, I'm cursing the cyclist who didn't signal their turn & shoots in front of my car. When I'm a cyclist, I curse the motorist who's so busy talking on their cell phone that they didn't even look to the right before pulling out into traffic. As a runner, the huge piles of horse shit on the trail get to be a bit much in summer (but, hey, it cuts down on my dog food costs!). As a cross-country skier, I get miffed at the foot traffic that walks in my pristine XC ski tracks -- make your own trail! As a backcountry skier, I wish the snowboarders could find another way up the mountain instead of bootpacking our skin track. -- And I'm sure they all feel the same way about me: my dogs leave paw prints in the skin track; my foot traffic on XC trails, even off to one side, leave divots; my off-leash dogs are startling and unpredictable (but would it really kill you to back off from your 35mph pace through our neighborhood, Mr Armstrong?).

Nevertheless, we're all out there. And chances are, I find you just as annoying as you find me. Maybe you're talking on your cell phone -- WTF? Can't you just be out in Nature? You're talking about fabric softener, for chrissakes!

But there is hope: A couple of summers ago, I was running with my one dog (at that time) off-leash on a heavily used parks trail just inside city limits, and we came around a bend in the trail to find a traffic jam: dogs, people, and cyclists on either side of two women on horseback, and the horses were not happy! They were shying and rearing under a couple of pine trees, and the women were doing their best to get the horses back under control. Everyone else standing around just gave them the space and time they needed to do it. Nobody grumbled about "stupid horses" or "trail obstructions";  I think we mostly felt bad for these women, who did sort it out in a few minutes and we all each moved on in our own directions.

If only that attitude were more pervasive in the brief passings we all have on the trails. My dog didn't come anywhere near you. If you hadn't seen us, would you even have know we were here? -- Your bike didn't actually hit my dog. The pile of horse poop was easy enough to avoid and will break down with the first rainfall. I can still ski over your tracks.

If a misanthropic curmudgeon like me can learn to get along, we all can.

(I don't know who Tania Donald is, but she's got my number, for sure.)

The Beauty of Iceland (or, "How Alaska Ruined Yet Another Gorgeous Travel Experience")

I love living in Alaska. I love it all for itself most of the time, no hidden agenda. I mean, just look at it:

(These are all my own photos, by the way, not stock photos of Alaska. See what I mean?)

But I confess I also love -- just a little bit -- the gleam I see in other people's eyes when they ask where I'm from. "Alaska?!?," which is usually followed by some sort of shivering motion or hand-gesturing upward (North) or other expression of incredulity (head-shaking, raised eyebrows, etc.). The further we are from Alaska, the more dramatic the body-language becomes. Turkey was exceptional for this, except the few instances where the listener had never heard of Alaska. See where not learning geography gets you? Missing out on a chance to make someone feel superior about where they live.

I always keep a few of the more dramatic pictures on my phone, usually of winter, to show to non-Alaskans: "Yeah, this is a glacier we ski up to in the winter." "Oh, this? This is our backcountry playground. No, there aren't usually any more ski tracks than those you see there."

But being an Alaskan Who Travels has its downsides, as well. My husband and I have lived here for about fifteen years and have had the good fortune to have also traveled outside quite a bit during that time. Over the years, it has come to our attention that living in Alaska can, sadly, ruin the Outside travel experience.

Time and time again, we have found ourselves in truly beautiful and breathtaking landscapes, observing the stunned expressions on fellow tourists faces, hearing their gasps of awe, ... My husband and I look at each other with a hint of a smile and half-shrug, "Meh."

I mean, we KNOW it's awesome. We KNOW what we're looking at is exceptional and beautiful and vast and stunning.... But we live among exceptional and beautiful and vast and stunning. Every day.

It's possible this has never been more true than our recent trip to Iceland. With a new direct flight from Anchorage putting Iceland within seven hours' reach, it seemed only sensible to extend our layover there to a couple of days for a scouting trip.

As we flew in over the harsh, vast volcanic terrain (the low-lying clouds added a lovely moody and somber air), the similarities to Alaska were immediately obvious: Nothing at all for miles and miles; few roads; brutal and unforgiving landscape. How could humans even THINK of living here?

The next day, we set out for a drive of the Golden Circle. Passing and passed by innumerable tourist buses, we stopped first at Pingvellir, where the earth's tectonic plates are actively shifting apart, deepening the cleft in the earth's crust. Then on to Geysir, with several impressive (you guessed it) geysers, one with the improbable name of "Strokkur" (Seriously, Iceland? You don't even have the sense of humor to put that on a t-shirt or coffee mug?).

 Then finally to the magnificent Gulfoss waterfall, a three-tiered onslaught of water, charging over terrace after terrace before plunging into an equally beautiful gorge, so alien that Ridley Scott used it in the opening sequence of his "Alien" prequel movie, "Prometheus" (where the alien guy disintegrates and falls into the waterfall? yeah, that one).

To get there and back, however, one must drive through hundreds of kilometers of ... nothing. Well, not  "nothing" like Iowa nothing. But even Iowa nothing has corn, at least. And cows, usually. Iceland instead had huge expanses of flat black volcanic lava fields, sprinkled here and there with a smattering of lichen. Near the subterranean hot springs areas, there was enough moisture for prairie grasses to establish a tenuous hold, just enough to keep the Icelandic ponies fat and sassy. And sheep -- if you're gonna live somewhere this cold, you're gonna need some wool.

My husband and I were, in a word, bored. 

Yes, I do know how that sounds, actually. That's precisely my point. It's Alaska's fault. Miles and miles of uninhabited terrain? Have that. Dramatic cliffs and mountains stretching up to the sky? Check. Nearly impossible terrain features, like glaciers? Righty-o.

And there were so many PEOPLE! Tourists, I mean. I suppose Alaska is like that, too, but we just don't go where the tourists go, or at least not when they go there. I suppose if we lived in Iceland, we'd figure that trick out pretty quickly, as well.

I know, I know -- it's hard to feel sorry for us poor Alaskans: Oh, woe is you, having to endure such spectacular natural beauty day after day, so much so that it dims your appreciation for other exotic locales, such as New Zealand, and the Turkish Steppes, and Iceland. Poor poor us.

Fortunately for us, Iceland did have a few features to remind us we weren't still in Alaska: curmudgeonly shopkeepers, overpriced but elegant cuisine, expensive gasoline, ....

Crap. Well, there's no place like home!

Back to Reality: "Morning After" Travel Musings

6:47am

My eyes snap open, and my brain begins to whir. Where am I? Istanbul? Vienna? Reykjavik? No, Alaska.

Maybe there's a trigger in my very own home pillow that binds magnetlike to its partner in my head and sets off this morning's rapid-clip parade of thoughts. Never mind that I am neither able nor interested in starting on any of the tasks quickly jotted on today's To-Do list by my early-rising subconscious: the dogs are still at the sitter's; the accumulated mail isn't delivered until later today; the husband is sleeping, so too early for house-rummaging; groceries.... Ahhh, thanks to the 24-hour grocery store, one can ALWAYS do grocery shopping. And, after a nearly four week absence, the refrigerator is looking pretty barren -- but at least it doesn't smell bad.

So I get up. No sense just lying there -- or is that my mother's voice?

As usual post-travel, first thing out of bed, I am nearly paralyzed by the decision of what to wear today. After having lived in the same two pairs of pants (okay, three -- what can I say? I don't pack as lightly as I used to), skirt, and four or five shirts for the past three and a half weeks, suddenly being faced with an entire drawer of pant options is almost overwhelming.

My first thought is always, "Why do I need this much stuff anyway?" which is immediately followed by, "Oh, my green fleece pajama pants! I LOVE those!" My next coherent thought is how frequently I look in my closet and, akin to any high school senior, I feel I "have nothing to wear!" and that thought's juxtaposition to my first thought. I feel the hint of a profound realization about perspective and excess and societal pressures nibbling at my awareness, so I turn off the light and leave the room: No one should have profound realizations before 7am.

Preserving the quiet of the morning, I pour myself a cup of tea (not Turkey's delicious chai, which I already miss) and sort through the flotsam and jetsam of our travel gatherings. Various gifts and trinkets litter the kitchen table for last night's first round of unpacking. A couple of Turkish wines for my husband's coworkers. A bag of assorted fruits and spices from the Spice Market in Istanbul. A scarf of two, which calls to mind the daring feats of negotiation needed to procure them from the vendor -- he still probably made a huge profit, while letting me think I got the better deal.

And the money. Or moneys, I should say: the table is littered with currency from at least four nations. Pink and green and blue paper money mingle with coins of assorted sizes and values. Lira and euros and kronors ... and America's boring uniform green bills among them. How long until our progressive Western nation has a female figure on our currency, as does the Turkish 5000 kronor bill? (Don't get too excited, it's worth about $50 US.)

Somehow, the money is one of the most exotic aspects of travel. It's why I'm not necessarily eager to get rid of every last bill before I leave a country -- stashing those monies away in plastic bags allows me to see and handle those memories from time to time when I find myself rummaging through the "travel" drawers for some other reason. The money, in particular, reminds me that I wasn't just passing through; it's evidence that I engaged, however superficially, with another human being who is in some small way different from me. And keeping the money allows me the illusion that I could, at the drop of a hat, fly back there and do it all over again.

This morning, the memories of the trip are still thick and vivid. I was, after all, just in Reykjavik yesterday morning. They cling to me like a film of honey obscuring my view of "normal" life: my home, the laundry, the groceries. But I can feel them degrading in intensity already, small particles washing away from the edges. The delicious red tomato and nut paste we ate -- was that in Urgup, or Olympos? What was John the Brit's wife's name again? The bookstore in Vienna: was it called "Shakespeare in Love" or "Shakespeare & Company"?

I am hopeful the photos will help refresh the memories over time. I've started taking pictures less with an eye at capturing a beautiful frameable print than to trigger a small memory: Chad & Almilla standing on a Bodrum beach at sunset, the color of the setting sun on the stark cliffs of Reykjavik, that crazy litter of kittens on the rooftop next to ours in Istanbul. These are usually the memories I crawl inside on bleak November Alaska days. Or even moreso, on the days when I'm not convinced my Life is walking its true path. These little events -- always somehow more important than standing in the Hagia Sophia or walking the Theodosian walls, which it seems any idiot with money could do -- are the nuts and bolts of travel. Buying bread in the little grocery store down "our" street in Istanbul. I lived that moment, was a true and functioning person swept up in daily ebb and flow of normal ordinary humans.

But I can feel the ebb and flow of my own daily life calling to me, as my stomach grumbles and I am reminded that fig jam and maraschino cherries do not a healthy breakfast make. And so, to the store for groceries then to the sitter's for dogs -- ahh, the dogs. Sometimes when I travel, I forget I have dogs. With their insistent existential zeal for Life, they will undoubtedly help ground me in this next new chapter again at home. But already, just a little, I miss the road.