Homeward Bound

I've been in McMurdo a little over two weeks and have been so busy at work, that even without housemouse and GASH (extra work at Palmer) I feel like I have less free time. I had No Idea how spoiled I was having wifi in my room at Palmer, and the slowness of the internets here is incredible. I have tried on several different days to upload pictures to this blog & do a posting, but I have finally given up & have decided to just blog without photos. I have posted nice photos on my facebook page, so if anyone who reads this want to see those photos feel free to "friend" me.

I'm so much more comfortable and relaxed here...I have very sweet memories of my time at Palmer & the things that were good there were Very Good...but here I feel like I'm at home. I get enough walking in in a day that I feel like I don't have to work out, and there is always places to pop over into if I want some company. And on the nights my roomie goes to work, I have a blissful 4 hours of reading solidtude in my room. I'm totally loving my kindle reader, and continue to read voraciously on it.

Working at the Heavy Shop is fun and fast paced. This is the first time I've returned to a warehouse I've previously worked at and it's been enough years that it feels fresh again. There are the familiar faces and many new mechanics as well. The parts counter where I work has a line at it all day, and I don't remember it being this busy when I worked here 4 years ago. Most days I do a repetitive walk from the counter to the warehouse behind the building, back and forth so many times that I'm surprised there isn't a rut carved into it. I finally got my pickle (M4K forklift) training, and driving Elvis again is a joy. I'd forgotten how fricken' hard it was to see out of the front of this machine, but compared to the Skytrak I drove at Palmer (where you can easily see the forks), this is much more fun in general to operate because it articulates.

Now that I've been here two weeks and my routine is deeply entrenched, I need to ponder my future in Antarctica. I am in my 6th season on Ice and and on the fence about whether I'm going to be a "lifer" or not. This lifestyle is so amazing but it is also so amazingly weird: I forced myself to go out last night to hear live bands when all I wanted to do was lie in my cave & read books. I ended up having a really great time and staying up late, but it always feels like I'm a freshman in college when I go out here. The people you see every day are liquored up and hanging on each other - and as a sober person it can be a very entertaining show to watch. I am so safe without alcohol! I cannot imagine getting drunk here on Saturday nights in a town this small. By midnight the clubs look like pens of animals getting ready to or hoping to rut. I get to walk out the door utterly clearheaded and crawl into my cozy walled off bed and read until late as I don't have to get up early on Sunday. At Sunday brunch you can see the hangovers & excited energy of those that had a wild night..and I get to enjoy the stories I hear from these big party nights.

I picked up my 17 year sobriety chip here when I first got here and it seems like just yesterday I was getting a one year chip. When I first quit drinking I never intended for sobriety to become a way of life...I was just miserable and had tried everything else so I was going to go on the wagon for a while. Now most of my dreams have come true, and some I hadn't even known were waiting for me have come true also. In the midst of some of the bitterness and crankiness I can get into in this place (the Ice), it is still an incredible place for life to press upon me in ways that I don't experience off Ice: whatever stored up anger or resentments I have will force me to deal with them. I will have strong reactions and will have to take care of them myself quickly because "perception" is "reality" down here & I want to be perceived well. I don't drink or get into trouble, but I can be mouthy and squawk about the system and when I hear myself being this way I make an effort to reign it in the next day. In short, I have to be a grownup here (but in other ways, you never have to grow up here!).

There's nothing new here. No epiphanies or see-God-now experiences to gush on about. Coming back to McMurdo after a year off was like putting on comfortable old slippers & settling into an easy chair. When I first got here so many people said "welcome home," and that is what it feels like: a sort of tribal home for oddballs, misfits,  and people like me who are both and especially like not having to feed or house myself.

The Voyage North

These photos are from the 8 day voyage from Palmer Station to Chile. As far as redeployments go, this one was spectacular - an 8 day paid cruise to and from Antarctica. I can get so caught up in the negatives while on station that I am sometimes blinded by the big picture of the really cool stuff I get to do with this lifestyle. I hear a lot of kvetching (and do a fair amount myself) from people about various things about working on the Ice, but ultimately, for me, this was, and continues to be a dream come true. Distance and time soften the prickly aspects of the season, so that what remains are memories of what is good working on station. And the power of images to conjur memory and feeling are astounding. I know things change and perhaps someday it will be time for me to trade this lifestyle for something different - but Antarctica is still so compellingly wonderful for me: I am truly excited to be going back to McMurdo to a job I've held in the past. I'm looking so forward to being in New Zealand again, the CDC & C-17 ritual, and seeing dozens of friends.  I am also looking forward to the structure and routines. I see that I need to learn how to treasure this sort of non-travelling time off. When I am on Ice in the middle of some horrible tasking, this long stretch of free time is all I think about, so I just need to learn how to relax and enjoy it!

I left station 3 weeks ago and have tried to settle into a transitional routine here in Austin but am finding that filling my days with activities and self structuring are ridiculously stressful. With hundreds of options available to choose from, I end up feeling overwhelmed after culling down to a couple of time fillers, followed by frustration regarding logistics (traffic), then chucking it all to spend the time simply walking around the local parks with my dog. One of the problems is that I feel like I have to pack my day with excitement as I only have two weeks before going back to the Ice, that I have to Blaze New Trails every moment.

I compulsively read every Anita Brooker novel years back, and even though I find her writing exquisite, her inert characters served as a warning to me as the kind of person I did not want to be: a healthy, moneyed woman with loads of free time on her hands spending endless stretches of days wandering around her large and lonely flat, incapable of goals or action. I started reading Brookner when I felt trapped in my life, and stopped reading her when my life became exciting (travel, adventure, seasonal work!) I have always been fascinated by homebody-ism, but incapable of it myself. I get a lot of creative stuff done when I have a regular home, but I always feel oppressed by property ownership and yearn to be free. I have the freedom now, and big dreams require big sacrifices. I could go on...but I'll stop now and go out and enjoy the rare rainy day here in Austin.

My Precious Half Winter

This season was so different than my previous ones, and so unexpectedly challenging in such surprising and difficult ways, that I was curious when I started instantly missing Palmer as the boat pulled away (aside from the obvious teary goodbye with Will.) The place was beautiful, the food was extraordinary and all my coworkers were good people doing a good job. But I felt so oppressed by the smallness of the population that I thought I would pop with relief when I entered into wider expanses of both terrain and number of bodies. So I left with some trepidation: I was in a very coddled & protected world. I was treated well uniformly by everyone. My job was busy & ultimately, satisfying. Getting on the boat became the beginning of Unstructured Free Time - something I'm trying to develop a better working relationship with. Eight days tossing & turning on the boat, watching movies, eating & sleeping (while still on the payroll) flew by. One heavenly night at the old hotel in the square of Punta Arenas felt like my reward for the season. Twenty four hours of sleepless airplane rides later I wonder how the season seemed to be over in the blink of an eye, when some of the days seemed to drag on forever. I read so many memoirs, saw so many movies, ate so many exquisite desserts - that was part of the deal. I now completely understand how people get stuck in this lifestyle....it's so easy to keep doing. So easy, yet hard too. I met some amazing people at Palmer and on the Gould. Even though there were times when I thought my Antarctic experience was in "the red" this time, I know that I am beyond grateful that I had the opportunity to go to Palmer. I will never forget these past four months. Oh, and there's a story about the second photo with me & Jon about to swing cans. After we were done with this final part of pier ops I went inside where some people had been watching us. One of my coworkers who has an indoor job said "Marsha that looks really horrible..what you were doing out there..." and I just smiled real big & said THIS is why I work in Antarctica..to do stuff like this! To stand outside in storms doing stuff I never imagined I'd be doing.

Palmer Station, I'm not sure I like you, but I love you.

In a month I won't have anyone to cook for me anymore

The first picture is of me tubing down the glacier behind the station. It's a good size bunny hill - long & gentle til you get near the bottom, where jagged rocks await you. As someone who grew up in a climate on par with Qatar, success for me will be represented by pictures of winter. As a child I was obsessed with a magazine ad of the Marlboro man riding a horse through an austerely silent and snowy forest with big flakes falling around him. I hung this picture on my wall and even asked my mom for the 50 cents to order the poster (this was in the 60's when you could mail two quarters in an envelope & get something cool mailed back to you). I was a 5th generation Texas who fantasized about snow because it was something I was going to have to travel to find. It was mysterious & desirable to me and I don't know why. Growing up near a sketchy coastal beach that I was rarely tempted to visit, I was amazed that that is all my friends in high school wanted to do once they obtained cars. Bloated bodies in the sun, drunk sunburnt rednecks, kids stabbing sticks into dead jellyfishes, soiled dialpers carelessly tossed into the wet sand, not to mention the lack of intellectual stimulation - it just wasn't my scene. I've always been fascinated with the almost unanimous opinion that a tropical landscape with white sandy beaches & 80 degree weather is something not only desirable but worth paying lots of money to get near. It just seems like a failure of imagination. Even here, where I am "wintering", the days are growing longer & the more daylight we have the more uncomfortable I am with it - I loved only have an hour or two of light a day. There was something almost holy and ecstatic about sitting at a desk at work during pitch darkness. It was freakin' bizarre. After a brief stint in Tejas I will be in 24 hour sun again in November...but I have loved the overcast & grey days here - it has been such a blessing after the chronic heat-wave vacations I've been taking for the last 5 years.

The second photo is penguin cute overload. Their adorable, stuffed-animal like cuteness is almost ironic against the harsh landscape. And seeing wildlife down here can soften the toastiest soul.

The third photo could probably be used as an art project if I could come up with a good enough caption, but it shows what I'm willing to do to spend June, July and August in a snowy paradise. A co-worker & I were "carpet cleaning" with no previous experience, dumping stinky toxic cleaner into this fisher-priced looking machine of dubious manufacture and quality. It's instruction manual was fat and in Engrish - and the plastic contraption appeared to have been purchased off the shelf next to the "Easy Bake Oven." Is the carpet cleaner now? I dunno. I just signed up to do it to shake up the monotony of my routine. I got some chuckles in with my co-worker as we dumped filthy scunge on ourselves every time we changed the water. I am wearing a respirator as I was concerned about the fumes of the cleaner and hey, this is Antarctica where everything is done either half-assed or on overkill. Ultimately I didn't wear it as it interfered with my glasses. But I did get a picture of me in it, which was really important. Things are getting a little more exciting as we are ramping up for another port call & I get back on the boat in a month. The Cold, Deployment, Redeployment and Pier Ops (or Ship Offload at Mactown): why I love the Ice.

Happiness

"Happiness" is the title of one of my favorite films, and one we just watched here on station on what is known as "F&cked Up Friday" movie night. We try to watch things that are bizarre & disturbing, but I also like stuff that is good, so I chose Happiness. So many things about this film are great, but mainly it's a great script with some disturbing subject matter and super interesting story lines. So much about it to me seems to be like real life, just exaggerated - and it's most disturbing parts have an almost epiphanal nature to them; everyone deeply flawed, and deeply aware of it. But this ramble is not intended to be a movie review. I have been thinking about the concept of happiness here at Palmer a lot lately, mostly because the deprivation of stimulation and dearth of activities has me in a sort of withdrawel state. I couldn't wrap my head around what I was feeling here...I don't feel on edge or "crispy" like I can at McMurdo with all the crazy personalities there. I don't feel desolate or lost like I can when I'm in the "real world." But I'm not ecstatically happy either. I don't even think I feel happy...but I feel something...and I feel like something is missing. There is the reality of Winter tasking which can be very very dull & non stimulating. There are only 16 people here and they are all good natured and pleasant enough, but I came in half season and didn't bond with the original group who came down here together. I don't have juicy, bawdy, mealtime conversations like I can at McMurdo. There's no gossip here so that is probably good, but if I were to be perfectly honest I kind of miss it. There is no privacy here so there is nothing to gossip about. I'm reading a book entitled "The Geography of Bliss" where the author, who considers himself an unhappy person, travels to all the places in the world that report the highest happiness rates. What he is discovering is that what one culture considers happy may not be what another does. Americans think they need to be happy all the time or they panic and think something is wrong with them. But what if it was okay not to be happy. I used to be addicted to fun and highs and drama. Now I am attached (I won't say addicted) to having what appears to be an exciting life. I think this makes me happy. It does in lots of ways because it is the life I always dreamed of having, but built in to that lifestyle are certain miseries. A lot of us Iceheads talk about the miseries of working on Ice but we put up with it. Misery here feels sharper and more interesting than misery back home. My back home unhappiness has an undertone of panic to it, and I think that is because I know there is this wide world of choices I could choose to get out of my misery: road trip, movies, hair-cut, buy cool boots, painting workshop, adventure travel, coffee shop, internets, etc. But here, where my world is in two buildings & there is NO place to walk to, misery takes on a different quality & shape: instead of something making me nervous that I want to run from, I know I CAN'T run from it so I HAVE to live with it. And living with it seems to soften it, sweeten it, and make it less miserable...and eventually it fades away and peacefulness takes over. I used to only know thrills and freak outs. I was building toward some sort of thrilling thing all the time and when it fell apart I fell apart. Now, the pleasures are small, but they take on a deeper meaning here in a place with few options. I can read or watch movies in my spare time. People play board games & cards here on weekends (I was warned this would be the "fun" happening in Winter), which I am not interested in, so I get a lot out of the reading and films. I once heard a Bob Dylan quote that stuck with me for a long time. I don't remember it exactly but the interviewer asked him if he was happy and Dylan thought it was a dumb question because he didn't think it was really important whether he was happy or not - that there were states of being that were much more interesting than happiness. This rang true for me and appreciated hearing something vocalized that I'd always sensed and didn't have words for. Am I happy? I don't know. I usually don't know until later when I'm in a situation that is very different that what I've experienced before. What I do know is that I'm not unhappy...in this small of a town, I have to pull upon some pretty adult resources like acceptance, restraint of tongue, tolerance...all good things and probably good for me to practice. One can't indulge in histrionics in a place where you live and work side by side 24/7 with a small group of people. I feel a dearth of something here...a dusty dry empty place in my soul...a place usually filled with intellectual and creative external stimuli. But after the intitial uncomfortableness with this emply place, I saw that I was just in a new place I'd never been in that felt sort of prison-like, but that instead of panicking about it I would just explore it & live in it. I have gotten used to it & it is not so bad. I have moved beyond just thrills and angst, and settled into the middle way, which I never ever in the past would have thought could have brought any sort of happiness with it, but might.

Hurtling Towards the Half Century Mark

In these self-photos I always forget to behave as a subject as I am focusing on taking the picture, so I usually end up with some sort of unflattering strained looking grimace. But on closer inspection I realize the common quality of all the most recent self-photos is that I look old. I see a neck I wish were covered up and the beginnings of jowliness. The grey hair is coming in thicker, which doesn't really bother me so much, except when I do a flat one color dye job then the grow out is more harrowing. There is so much I love about aging and I have waxed on about it the last few years, but I am finding that I need to get creative with how to incorporate the obvious aging part with part of me that wants to remain punk rock. Now I've seen old punk rockers who look really cool, and it is apparent that they have completely embraced the grey hair and wrinkles & just continued to wear the black t-shirts & jeans, and they look awesome. These are mostly guys, and my middle aged chick friends that look cool are willing to put a lot of energy into costuming & make-up which I think is great, but which I have absolutely no energy or inclination for. My personal style, like my artwork, will have to evolve based on laziness. I have never used a blow dryer or hair products so I have no idea how to have one of those cool short hair styles. Having it long & unruly seems the best option, though now I have to figure out how to deal with the grey that is not dramatic enough to grow out, but just sprinkled enough to be drab. I've never liked natural hair color, so I will continue dying it, just perhaps not one flat shade. I mentioned laziness connected with my art too...I hated taking technical classes on how to draw or paint, so I just started paining on my own, doing whatever was fun, and I started getting recognition & shows & sales when I rejected all rules on how to paint. Best of all, I was having an incredibly moving experience and tons of fun. I guess the point of all this is I plan to approach middle age with an open mind & not out of fear. I would be lying if I said I was not slightly disturbed but what I see in new photos (I especially look haggy in Antarctica, though I am much happier here), but I am going to go with it. What other choice do I have? One of the best memories I have is being at a punk rock reunion show at SXSW this past March where my absolute favorite band from the Austin scene of the late 70's was playing to a gigantic crowd. The crowd was mostly comprised of tourists, yuppies, folks who buy a wristband & want to watch music from chairs. I paid the $20 just to see the Dicks...and only wanted to be pressed on the stage, like the old days, and was afraid I wouldn't be allowed up there, but then saw about 15 of us from 30 years ago, looking only slightly older, but just as badass move in front of the seated - and when the god Gary Floyd showed up with his giant black glasses & shock of white hair and the middle aged punks shouted every word to Dicks Hate Police with fists pumping I was in that blissful spot I lived in every night in 1979-80....I felt exactly the same as when I was 18-19 years old, and here I was aged 48, with the same energy & desire to smash things up (figuratively). To see that that part of me is alive & well & happy makes me realize that the grey hair & jowls don't fricking matter. If I just stay punk rock on the inside, I will be in my happy place.

Once the Thrill of Arriving

on a new station & starting a new job has worn off, life becomes the same here in Antarctica as it does probably just as much as anywhere else. The one thing that will always keep me fresh & excited is when I go outdoors - I've been indoors quite a bit lately deep into the data entry aspects of my job, but whenever I do go outdoors I'm reminded that holy crap I live in Antarctica and it is so wonderful here. Not wonderful like New York City wonderful, but wonderful like it's blowing puffy soft snow all day & there's soft pink light on the icebergs & the glacier creaks & groans & seems to have a spirit all it's own. Like a desert, it is so alive here - so alive & so wild, which, mixed with the drudgery of the work, makes it more interesting. The only walking I do some days is between the two buildings that comprise berthing & eating. I also work in the building I sleep in so could feasibly go to my office in house slippers. I'm used to logging so many miles a day just walking during my workday at Mactown, that I'm really feeling the tenseness in my body of missing all that walking. I went to the gym on Sunday, & do some yoga here & there, but if I don't want to leave here with 30 extra pounds on me I'm going to have to get on an aerobic program. My memoir reading addiction has kicked in again now that I'm on Ice. It feels wrong in a way to call it an addiction cuz it is SO satisfying. I just read "The Glass Castle" & "Without A Map" and I couldn't wait to get in bed every night to read. I've also set up a painting area in my room & thought I'd get into painting here, but I find myself more wanting just to read.

Because this station is so small & options so limited I find myself thinking about small things back home that seem like they will be extremely thrilling when I get back: riding my scooter to a coffee shop with my laptop and my doggie in his carrier on my chest, not getting up early, and most exciting: churning the wheels on my next trip. The parts of my Europe trip that were so great told me some key things about myself: I can have an immensely satisfying time travelling on my own, and, no matter how much I want to fit in to the hiking, climbing, country loving milieu, I am a city girl at heart. I like a mix of both, but the big thrills for me are in a fabulous big city. I've been to some great ones. Still many more I want to see - Moscow is at the top of the list.

The thing I am happiest about here is the weather. It is mid July and I am having my first "dream weather" summer. It's still over 100F in Austin, & I would be so depressed and angry if I were there. I giggled when I went out to move snow today in the beautiful snowfall...for the first time in a year & a half, I haven't awoken cussing about the weather...my reverse SAD was cured by moving here. I don't just like the snow & cold - I love it. I dread the day when I actually see the sun, and hope that it won't be too bad down here.