FAIRBANKS, ALASKA - I saw my first friend from the top of the airport escalator. Rick was ostensibly waiting for his son to arrive from Anchorage, but since I got off the plane first, we exchanged a juicy masculine hug. That one simple act brought back a memory of the trip we made Chitina. It was one of those ‘light on fish but otherwise perfect’ trips. Unencumbered by slime, I was instead elbow deep in shared explorations of the spirit. A freezer full of reds is a beauty to behold, but the talks on the rocks provide lasting nourishment.
I’ve been coming back and forth to Fairbanks for a few years now and that low approach over the Tanana flats always gets me. To some it may look like break-up, but for me it was homecoming and Rick and I need hardly exchange a word to know what it meant.
The driving force of my trip was that DeAnne had decided that after 30 years in Fairbanks, time had come to sell her Oasis-By-The-Chena and migrate south. My job was to get my remaining gear out of her basement and fix a few things around the place. Sad as it felt for both of us to consider closing the Alaska chapter, it’s better to do so while still healthy and this way, we were doing so by choice rather than default. One way or another we all leave and painful as it is, it’s sweeter to be fully present for it.
I gave myself four days, enough time to sort the essentials, send a few to my other outposts and distribute the rest among friends. DeAnne and I found fellowship around leaving friends before either side is ready, of mourning the death of acquaintances and the ever changing nature of relationships.
Inbetween packing, I fit in visits with friends and spiritual kin. John met me at Koponen’s sauna for a dose of sweat and sanity where Doug tipped me to his striking photos of nature’s sublimity. Chuck and I chatted in the cab of his new rig, one big enough to hold a growing family and 40 sheets of plywood. David shared with me a story of love, a ring and some rugged Florida oranges. Becca fed me a home-raised chicken and Steve introduced me to the greatest-ever Alaskan engagement ring - diamond-encrusted all-season tires. Lou made moose and Jon made flight plans. Steve and I talked bees above the din of chainsaws that were turning his quiet neighborhood into the next executive estate.
I also caught wind of the self-centered politics that usurped one man’s inspiration, the divisive advisory vote and burgeoning murder rate. There they were, all the world’s problems on display in our little town.
Along the way, they wanted to know which of the options I’d choose. Back to Shanghai or hunker down with the guru in the Arizona desert? Enjoy sunny Denver or teach in Taiwan? Perhaps the visa to Australia will work out or maybe I’ll bend nails in Fairbanks again. All options are good and we all appreciated the equally-valuable work of raising the next generation and spreading the dharma.
It was the last evening, though, that really sealed the experience of being back. “Of all the places you’ve been,” Sharon asked, “where feels the most like home?” Of course you all know the answer. It’s why you’re still living here amid the low temperatures, high prices and wavy roads.
Coming back ‘home’ was a gift of expanding proportions. From the funky Quest office to the big box stores, good ole Two Street and a new Thai House. Ever present change, but still just the same. As I left Friday morning with a copy of Brother Asaiah, the story of Homer’s all-too-human patron saint under my arm, the tears trickled out.
“That’s what I love about Fairbanks,” Cathy said the night before. “It’s a place where a person can be gone for years and just join right back in, right where they left off.”
###