Homegoing

Fairbanks is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit.*

Our new home in the final throes of autumn, overlooking the foothills of the White Mountains. Photo by Jack Hickman.

We’re home, and I feel it all the way to my soul. When we pulled up to our new house the other day, something let go that’s been bound and wound up tightly inside me, ever since we left Fairbanks in the first place.

After spending the last few weeks in Anchorage — an interim stop between Louisiana and ultimately, Interior Alaska, we were more than ready to leave the bustle behind and blaze further north. 

We took a step forward in time as we made our way up the Parks Highway, advancing toward winter with every hour. The golden glow still holding onto the trees in Southcentral Alaska grew more threadbare with each passing mile. 

Along with the leaves, traffic thinned out the further we went, and for most of the three hundred and eighty some-odd miles we traveled, we were the only two vehicles on the road.

Denali was OUT, and gorgeous on the stunning bluebird day we chose to migrate. Its massive presence held my gaze under a hypnotic spell, and seemed to pull us north, while geese flapped as hard as they could in the other direction. That seemed apropos. 

We’re always swimming upstream.

At each pee break and refueling stop, the dogs hopped out to sniff around, tracking our progress and registering cooler temperatures. Ice on the puddles at the Talkeetna junction, a bite in the air in Healy.

After sweltering in Lafayette for two years, we all found relief in being able to gulp down some breathable air.

At long last, the turn from pavement to gravel signified the home stretch, and the dogs bolted upright. They hung their heads from the windows, noses working overtime to catch the scent of the new neighborhood. Mabel’s ears stood out to the side like Dumbo’s in the breeze, ready to take flight, and Juneau whimpered a little, crying to the passing notes of squirrels chirping from the mixed birch and spruce forest. I had to sternly remind her not to jump from the window to go after them. 

When I killed the engine, the pups leapt from the car to prance around excitedly, circumambulating the little log house. Well, Juneau prances. She takes a few steps and leaps like a deer to catch glimpses from a higher perspective. Mabel, lacking in the leg department, moves around more like a tarantula. From a distance, it’s hard to tell the back from the front of her nose-down, sausagey long-haired dachshund form.

I put the dog bed inside, fed them, and brought their toy box in from the car, indicating that this was where we would be staking our claim. This was home.

Then it was our turn to sniff around. Panoramic views include exactly zero neighbors, and gone is the golden glory of autumn that greeted us the last time we stood here, deciding to make this place ours.

Instead, from every window now, ruddy underbrush rolls out a rusty-red carpet, and dried wild grasses bow in reverence, heralding the end of fall. 

We know what comes next. 

The birch and willow stand naked, ready to bend to it. The fireweed is in its smoke-phase now, with whisps of fluff that thread themselves through the landscape as portends; the first white hairs coming to grow in the grizzled beard of Old Man Winter.

Jason and I wandered through each room, touching every surface, introducing ourselves properly to the place that will hold us through the imminent winter, and hopefully for years to come.

That first night in our new digs, I awoke in the wee hours to northern lights dancing through the window, and stepped outside to gaze at a sky pierced with stars and streaks of green. There was the Alaska flag, waving at me from above — the Big Dipper and the North Star, always pointing the way home.

I stayed up to watch the morning break. Already, it’s coming nearly an hour later than it was, even a just few hundred miles to the south. 

In time, the stars faded and inky blackness gave way to deepest indigo. Up close, the spruce trees, always stalwart, and the birch, stripped down to their birthday suits, delineate the space around the house, communicating their presence in the simplest of terms: black outlines, punctuating the slowly lightening skyline.

Juneau and I sat inside and watched through the picture windows. We held vigil for the faint silhouette of the hills we knew would eventually emerge from the darkness. 

Sure enough, as the light rose and spilled across the landscape, they rolled out in every direction, taking on more clarity. First, under a purple cast, then a peachy-lavender glow, and we greeted the new day.

My view from our road on an evening walk. Photo by author.

*I can’t remember who I’m quoting for the subtitle of this piece, but it’s perfect. Thank you, whoever you were.