Category Archives: Alaska

in a fever

Posted on by June 20, 2013

There are crumpled tissues everywhere, and I’m a little dizzy. My head is throbbing, my temperature is high, and my eyes are watering. There are a million things to do, but I am stuck in one place, right here, with my head floating somewhere near the ceiling.

It’s just like being stuck in a checkout line at Walmart…for five days straight.

Well, not quite so bad as that, I guess.

Days of various stages of a cold and fever, my head hurting, my face hurting…the whistle of the teapot might as well be the scream of the Nazgul flying overhead. Vin has taken the kids to the store a few times so I could rest in a quiet house, alone with the cats and the tissues and tea.

Just me. Me, on the couch with the white cat at my feet, and the stripey cat on the other couch, laying on top of a mountain of unfolded laundry. We are all equally productive.

And yet…if I could move off the couch, I would fly free through the house. I would fold the laundry, I would scour the kitchen, I would have lunch prepped and ready for their return. I would water the plants that are wilting and I would even polish the teapot. I would tackle that writing project and balance the checkbook. I would be in a fever to conquer all of the big and little mountains that are neglected through the week in this brief oasis of time and space of quiet. Of peace.

I think of all these things, and sneeze. Wipe my nose, wipe my eyes, and wipe the agenda. I look at the pile of tissues scattered all around me…consider picking them all up…and remember how utterly exhausted I am. My greatest accomplishment this week has been to read the last 29 chapters of George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie.

A mountain is a strange and awful thing. In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains. But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them – and what people hate they must fear. Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite awe enough of them. To me they are beautiful terrors.

We’ve been having a heat wave in Alaska and passed 90 degrees on Monday. My temperature hovered just around 100. We missed church on Sunday for Father’s Day and actually called in sick for the first time in years. I think. Wait a minute…what were we talking about, again? My brain is fuzzy and ideas are fleeting…oh, yes – Father’s Day.

So we played hooky. Four of the kids were hacking and coughing and could not go to their classes anyway, and the thought of them coughing and hacking on us in the middle of the service, in the middle of the sanctuary, did not appeal. But by the afternoon, it was 85 degrees and we decided to suck it up and go to one of our favorite places for a picnic. We would sweat it out.

We went to Hatcher’s Pass. Right up to the mountains.

I will try to tell you what they are. They are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot, melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight – that is what it is.

We stopped right there, not bothering to go further up. We walked a little and looked at the Little Su. We waded in it. We threw rocks and sticks in it. We argued about whether it is a river (it is) or a creek (more like it). Depending on who you ask.

Now think: out of that cauldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped – up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky – mountains.

– George MacDonald, The Princess and Curdie 

But you know what happens when you call in sick and then decide to suck it up and go somewhere, don’t you?

Sometimes…you get busted.

There we were, leisurely picnicking along the Little Susitna, and a vehicle pulls up. Two vehicles, actually. And hands are waving at us out of their windows…and attached to the hands are our dear, smiling friends. We had missed seeing them at church that day. And, apparently, they noticed our absence. And I didn’t hear it myself, but I think this is the phrase Vin heard one of them say, grinning:

“Sure, we cover for you at church and then come up here and catch you goofing off!” Guilty. Come a little closer, pal, and let me sneeze on you.

That was Sunday. I remember it because we have pictures and I’m pretty sure I was there. I don’t remember much about yesterday, though. Something about soup, followed by ice cream. Lots of tissues…

Wait, it’s coming back to me. Vince took the kids to Walmart to…buy…something? I don’t know. I just have these vague memories of him saying he was going there with all six kids, and me reaching toward him in desperation: “Don’t do it! You don’t have to prove that you’re a hero!” But he did, and survived, and came home in a fever, swearing to never do it again.

But he is a hero. So he went again the next day, with all six kids…to a different store.

My energy ebbs and flows, comes and goes like sunlight on a partly cloudy day. And here I sit, at the foot of a mountain of laundry and to-do lists that will also sit. I will breathe and rest at the feet of the One who heals me. I will stop right here and go the rest of the way up the mountain on a different day.

The things on my to-do list are beautiful terrors that I will conquer later in the week.

Unless Vince beats me to it. Because he’s a hero like that. He makes me dizzy, too.

glorious is coming

Posted on by May 25, 2013

The laundry is piled on the couch, the dishes are piled on the counter. We are outside on the rug, on the picnic hill, on a dry brown lawn, in 70 degrees. Our feet are bare and our socks are in a pile next to us.

Last week we had snow. The week before we had rain, flooding, and ducks. Alaska is a capricious frontier, thumbing her nose at anyone who tries to tell her what May should look like.

  But today it is glorious. Trees that were naked this morning unfolded their leaves by the afternoon.

We school in summer and it changes things. We read our books outside, eat lunch outside, make lots of laundry outside, and try to recover the house somewhat before bedtime. Today, we interrupted a planned assignment to examine a freshly killed mosquito under the microscope. We finished Oliver Twist and Ten Apples Up on Top. We walked to the mailbox.

Summer isn’t the only cause for change, though. We’ve homeschooled since Mattie’s birth and it’s been the most natural thing in the world, this reading and learning together family thing…but 12 years into it, we find that we need to make some adjustments to fit everyone’s needs that go beyond just our yearly tweaking. What used to work needs to be set aside for what actually works right now. Maybe we’ll pick it up and dust it off later, after the dust actually settles.

I still read to all of the kids. Bigger kids still read to littler kids. We still use the buddy system that works for us: the one where the kids are buddies with each other, and I am buddies with Sophie, whom I periodically run upstairs and hide in the bathroom with. Sometimes one of us brings chocolate.

My laptop of almost five years recently endured some violence – it went swimming in coffee, and then broke its hinge, among other ailments indicating demise – and had to be replaced with something a little more reliable. Something new (ish). So we got something newish and I tried really, really hard I sort of tried to learn how to use it. But I wasn’t happy about it.

The icons looked funny and the email looked ugly and the Word program was weird and the photo editing program worked differently. Things that were streamlined for the sake of efficiency weren’t very efficient when my my fingers kept looking for the “end” key but hit the delete key instead. Or worse, the insert key – who uses that, anyway?! (I despise you, Insert Key). Nothing was normal and I raged in frustration and finally cried…more than once.

Our coffeepot has one button and I can work that machine beautifully. The microwave and I get along because most of the buttons are numerical and I really only need a couple of the other ones that have important words on them like “start” and “cancel.” If I concentrate super hard, I can even reset the clock on the oven after a power outage.

Stupid computers.

I finally figured it out, though. See? I’m typing on it right now. The other night I fixed two quirks on it as Vince looked on, and I did it by myself. No help, no crying.

I felt like a genius. It was awesome.

What is really changing around here is our expectation of what things are supposed to look like. Out of six kids, three of them are only a few months apart in age, but all are learning math at a different level. The only two that can really be paired together right now are Andrey and Chamberlain, who are three years apart. So, grades, schmades. Out the window they go.

The grades, I mean, not the kids. Well, sometimes…never mind.

This doesn’t mean we lower our standards. Those haven’t changed. We keep a vision of greatness for each of our kids, and we notice more and more that when we hold a high standard up for them, they live up to it. If we give them a pass for low standards, they live…down…to that, too.

We want our kids to live it up…not live it down.

We have high expectations, but we’re learning that we need to take some new routes to achieve them. We can cry in rage and frustration because it feels weird, because this place doesn’t look normal, or we can learn some new programs and really get somewhere.

This also doesn’t mean that we cave to pressures of political correctness, or to visions of what armchair quarterbacks think things should look like. We don’t relinquish parental authority or our own common sense to let other people take over areas that are our responsibility as parents. We can ask for help with discernment without falling to the faulty assumption that “experts know better,” because they simply don’t. They don’t know our children better than we do, and they don’t know their needs better than we do…and unfortunately, many of them are only experts in their own eyes, for their own ego. Hard-working parents have no time for that.

Sometimes it feels like we are constantly letting go of what we thought things should look like right now, letting it break, letting it soak, letting Him scrub us, letting Him move. We’re taking on His vision for what things actually do look like right now, in order to get to His vision of what life should look like later: a destiny of greatness.

We can embrace snow in May because we know glorious is coming. It will be awesome. And you know what else?

Weird is just a side effect of awesome.

testing, testing, uno-dos-tres

Posted on by September 3, 2013


The woodstove was glowing, smoke drifting slightly west from our chimney, and the snow was piling up almost as fast as the books on my to-read list. We were almost totally thawed last week until Saturday, when it started snowing and didn’t stop until a few days ago. People called it Merry Springmas.  

…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON
AKDT TUESDAY…

* LOCATION…MATANUSKA VALLEY.

* SNOW…ADDITIONAL SNOW ACCUMULATION 3 TO 7 INCHES THROUGH NOON
ON TUESDAY.

* TIMING…SNOW WILL INCREASE THIS EVENING INTO THE EARLY
OVERNIGHT. SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS WILL PERSIST THROUGH
TUESDAY MORNING. MINOR ADDITIONAL ACCUMULATIONS OF SNOW ARE
POSSIBLE THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT.

This came after the last advisory of 8-14 inches, which came after the alert from Saturday that I can’t remember the details of. The total at our house was 17 inches…less than some, more than others.


Our cats curled up together like quotation marks. The grill wore a chef’s hat. 

The kids practiced their theatrical skills and tried to convince each other they were waist deep

or more

and required assistance

before they had to swim to safety.


Just a few days before, the streets were dry. Mattie and Iree had testing and the rest of us had time to kill while we waited for them to finish. 

 We threw snowballs at each other,


 raised a ruckus at the library, 

stomped in puddles…


fell in puddles…


…and woke up at 7 am for three days straight and lived to tell about it. Miracles do happen. 

We drank a lot of coffee. At the post-testing celebratory lunch with Grandpa at Sophia’s Cafe, I discovered…Greek coffee.

“Greek coffee?” I asked the waitress. “What makes it Greek?”

“Well…I’ve heard people say that it’s like 16 cups of coffee in one cup.”

“I’ll take one of those.”

I just like watching my dad’s eyebrows go up.


This week, as the snow is re-melting, falling off the trees like glacial calving when the sun hits it, we’ve had more testing of a different sort. We had an appointment on Monday that was awesome (yay!) except that in spite of my warnings, our child with the most attachment issues was doted on for a 30-minute gig and we’ve been reaping the consequences ever since. For example: if a child acts like he’s…limping…right after he’s has his blood drawn, you can bet he is practicing his, ah, theatrical skills, also. Please. And while that is kind of funny, everything else we’ve been dealing with post-fawning-appointment has not been. We’ve been swimming for safety all week.

{Unless you are the parent, gushing over a child with attachment issues is a huge no-no, and those who do it are not the ones who have to deal with the aftermath later. Egad, Holmes!}

We are learning to assert boundaries with people in the community and trying really hard to teach those who need to understand what it is that we are dealing with. We have had to be taught, too, and we are still learning so much. Usually it’s wonderful, but this time it wasn’t, and we will start again when this blows over.

We did learn some exciting news though. Eight months home, and Reagan has gained 6 1/2 pounds. Andrey has grown almost 2 1/2 inches.


The fact that Reagan has gained so much weight is particularly notable since she lost almost a pound of hair when we cut it a few weeks ago. 

But the real miracle is that she still has both ears and no injuries, because she is quite a…shall we say, mover and shaker? and jerked this way and that way, wings flapping, the entire time. It didn’t help that this lady showed up at the back door, either.

 

Reagan was flapping like she’d had the Greek coffee. I snipped some quick layers and put away the scissors for everyone’s safety.


It’s Saturday as I write this and homemade macaroni and cheese is in the oven for our almost-sacred movie night. The superfluous testing has eased up over the last day or two and this is the first day I haven’t had to swim for shore all week. Which is wonderful, because I hate swimming. I’m convinced we weren’t meant to do it.


We were meant to walk on water.