Ice, White & Blue

Redhead Amok in Antarctica

Home » August 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Sexy Damn Pineapple

Last night I had a pineapple with a friend and it was so good, we lay there on our backs halfway through, juices drying on our chins, sticky & happy.  Post-coitally satisfied.

I don't like pineapples.

But in this environment, when you are handed a pineapple, and a man with a knife offers to cut into it properly for you, you takes whats you can git.

No, really, I don't like pineapples.

And it's not like I've been away from freshies for more than a week. I'm not one of the long-suffering freshie-deprived winterovers who would die, or kill, for a flavour or scent other than diesel, other people and fried chicken. But I was offered this pineapple, and the only civil thing to do was...well, hang on to it and sniff it and let it scent the Housing Office like a Mae West under the counter teasing us with her possibilities. For the entire weekend.

I'm definitely not a pineapple kinda gal.

But I still had the pineapple on Sunday, and only a Swiss Army Knife to get into it. So I had to sidle up to the cook, Jon, who gave it to me, and ask for his help with a knife.

We had a date. Monday night after work, me with the pineapple, him with the knife.

I still don't like pineapples. When in a fruit salad, pineapple is the filler like melon, through which I force myself to get in order to eat the grapes, strawberries, kiwi, whathaveyou. Just not pineapple. Being handed a pineapple down here, without a kitchen or a mother or a sister-in-law from Thailand to take care of it, is a bit disconcerting. Several days running I woke up with the one thought on my mind (well, after the "damn I have to pee and my alarm hasn't even gone off yet" thought) was "I Have A Pineapple And I Don't Know What To Do With It."

Well, last night I was thoroughly pineappled in a completely toe-curling, Tilting the Fundament, flush to my cheeks kind of way.

Damn, I'll never be able to look a pineapple in the eye again.

It's gonna be awkward looking Jon in the eye too this morning. We were both thoroughly pineappled. ;-) Once you share something like that with a guy, you are forever compromised.

Are they sure that it was an APPLE and not a PINEAPPLE that Eve offered Adam? I think Adam had the fruit first. It makes much more sense that way.  Hasn't there been some research about that? And why wasn't I warned by my mother about pineapple-wielding men? Mom? What have you got to say for yourself?

WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS ABOUT PINEAPPLES BEFORE?

Should I be worried about other fruit? Should I be thinking salaciously about, say, a mango? Should I resist the impure fruit thoughts?

posted by: coldwish at 08:07 | link | comments (8) |
housing 2005-06

Monday, August 29, 2005
Slow Sunday

When you work a 6-day week, Sunday is the much yearned for day off in which you plan to do everything you have not had time for during the last 6 days. Well, I planned to do my laundry & go to brunch & take it easy on myself. Recharge for the next week ahead. I did all that, even got in some emails and a post on my blog. Then there I was at 11:30 am, laundered, corresponded, overfed and dare I say it? Bored.
 
I heard about a movie playing in one of the other dorms at noon and headed on over. Watched Rabbit-Proof Fence, the Aussie movie about the forced removal of “half-caste” Aboriginal children from their parents to be put in orphanages to be “improved” to white standards. A terrible time in Australia’s history that lasted right up until 1970. A small and lovely film with a pretty powerful emotional punch, based on a true story. Opted out of watching the next movie: Shaun of the Dead. Too much time spent on my ass and I had seen it recently. By then it was 2pm and the day stretched on in front of me endlessly. More emails. Called a friend (Firefighter Dan) and we sat around in my room chatting for more hours than either of us realized, until my Winfly roomie Holly showed up just before 7pm and said she was going to try & catch the tail end of supper. Whoops! Off we shot to feed ourselves at the trough along with everyone else.
 
Ate a decent meal (good mashed potatoes with leeks!!!) and then we headed over to Gallagher’s (non-smoking bar) for a beer. No, I haven’t taken up drinking, but his fellow shiftmates invited me, so I consented. I played a game of Shuffleboard, the first ever in my life, with Firefighter Lieutenant Caleb and severely kicked his ass, much to his shock and my pleasure.
 
And that was my Sunday.
 
Why, you ask, was it so uneventful? Why didn’t I go for a walk outside? Where are those fabulous Antarctic adventures of yore? Phfuuh. Dealing with the cold of this place at this time of year is daunting. Thinking about it is exhausting. Planning for it, then getting dressed for it is something more than I wanted to do on my day off. I didn’t want to go out in daylight, which we are having more & more of each 24 hour period, I now see intimations of daylight at the end of breakfast. It was cloudy and a bit windy.  I am also trying to take care of myself down here, so I don’t end up with walking pneumonia.
 
Excuses, excuses.
 
But I had a good day. Not challenging, good company, good food (no really, brunch is the highlight of the week food-wise) and early to bed.
 
I think, this season, having an indoor job is going to cut down on my descriptions of great beauty, unless I make a concerted effort to get out and find it. I will be and am already severely tempted to talk about people, to observe people the same way, in the same detail as I do nature. But I chose not to last year, and I simply cannot this year, though I have certainly mentioned the names of more individuals this season than last. I refuse to describe them much. I have chosen to censor myself to that extent. This year the focus is much more on people, and there are some great ones. I will perhaps delve into people types later on, but I feel it risky to do much more than that.
 
It’s also boring for you, dear reader, to read about my social life. I could be anywhere and that would still be boring.
 
If my blog lags and you really want gossip, EMAIL me personally & I’ll let it rip. Because I’m tellin’ ya, I’ve got stories.
 
I’ll stop there, shall I?
 

posted by: coldwish at 12:17 | link | comments (3) |
housing 2005-06

Saturday, August 27, 2005
Outside in the Dark Alone

Excerpted from a letter I wrote a friend:
 
Winters can be a hard season when you are down in the dumps, it just makes the whole thing worse sometimes. The cold, the wet, the shorter days. It always makes me want to withdraw indoors and be alone & away from people.
 
Except here where I am now, experiencing some winter for the first time in Antarctica. I flew into Christchurch early this week, and landed in McMurdo Station soon after. I am experiencing the tail end of winter, with 20 hour nights, though getting shorter at a rapid clip at this point. Despite the short days I am overjoyed to be back down here where I am so happy. It's not the community, it's not the job, it's not the food (for damn sure), it's the place. I love it so much down here, it's so out of this world beautiful.
 
Tonight--Saturday night with the rest of the station out there partying & drinking--I went out for a walk in the dark. It was my first chance to get outside since I got here since I arrived with the flu and have been working through the sore throat, hacking cough and stuffed up nose all week. But tonight I swore I would go outside and see the night sky. So I bundled up in my ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) Gear and headed out of town. Alone. What a healing thing to do, what a miracle of new sounds and sights. I laughed to myself, danced in the crunchy dry snow to listen to the new sound my feet made in the snow. I have never walked in snow that sounded like rubbing a balloon. I can't describe it any more poetically than that. There was a distinct rubber sound to the snow against my boots. I thought at first it was the rubber of my boots squeaking, so I kneeled down to try my hands and knees and I got the same sound. It was so cold out the snow was completely & utterly dry, so each tiny cold flake rubbed against the next with a squeak. There were areas in the snow where the sound changed a bit, like I was walking on a hollow rubber surface. I tapped my feet and heard the faintest of echos in the snow, like I was perched on top of space under the snow in places I knew could not be anything but a few inches of packed & drifted solid snow then earth. I was startled and charmed.
 
I was moved enough to laugh out loud several times in glee, but luckily did not cry. As it was, it was cold enough--though largely windless so a more innocent walk could not be had in Antarctica--that my eyes in moisturizing themselves as I blinked were framed in a tiny filigree of frozen lashes. Occasionally my eyelashes froze together, and I had to open my eyes as wide as possible to detach the top from the bottom with a little release & pop. My hat was pulled down low over my forehead, and my gater pulled up high over my nose, leaving just a thin strip of skin showing. Both my hat & my gater, from the condensation of my breath, formed a skin of tinkly ice that crackled glassily when I reached up to adjust them.
 
Town behind me, as I walked toward the hut of Hut Point, was ablaze with yellow yellow lights, steam billowing forth from each building obscuring some of the brightness and rounding the edges of town. It was shocking to see such an expenditure of energy on light when there is little happening at night for which we need to light the way. We are not yet a 24/7 station, though it is ramping up to be so. Fleet Ops folks have begun the switch to nights so they can get the airfields in order for Mainbody in October. There is a lot of grooming & plowing & snowblowing to be done, and I believe the decision to put the Sea Ice Runway out further somewhere else has been nailed down. The ice in front of town is still too squiffy to be groomed into a runway. Last year the runway failed earlier on in the season, with great brine holes sitting on top of the ice, which are still there despite the extended winter cold. So there will be a shift.
 
I looked out into the darkness and there were the lights of Pegasus flickering readily against the black, lighting the way for whatever plane might be in need. I thought it odd, as our last Winfly flight headed out with 5 pax today many hours ago. What flight was it ready for? Will it be flashing like an alien landing strip out there for the remainder of Winfly?
 
But I was out there for the sky. Ah. The southern sky is a new & strange thing to me. The stars are so bright here in the dark, they are more readily believable as planets and systems. I believe if I knew a thing about astronomy I'd have been able to identify celestial bodies very easily tonight. Even in ignorance, or perhaps because of my astronomical ignorance (take that as you will), the sky was marvelous: A tad obscured by some fog, but outside of town, all very clear. There is a lot of light pollution from McMurdo, I wanted to go further to escape it but I could feel the chill and the rules are there for a reason. Go no further. I didn't. I turned around; headed back in to town.
 
I didn't see the Auroras, nor anything special to Winfly, but I heard the snow speak a different language than any snow I've ever walked on before. I am buoyed up in spirit from it. But must to bed now. I am exhausted, as the last two days at work have been rough with all the energy I have to spend communicating with people.
 

posted by: coldwish at 22:52 | link | comments (5) |
housing 2005-06

Vertical Hold

Well, I am almost well. I certainly have the cough-like-I'm-dying thing down pat, and the snot I blow is copious and bloody. But I feel a helluva lot better than I did earlier in the week. At least when I cough I don't look like my head is about to explode and my eyes pop out.  I am maintaining my vertical hold much better now. A good thing too, because we did get whammied in this office, with all the new people wanting room changes, needing linens, wanting TVs & lamps & lightbulbs, having too much heat, not enough heat, noisy neighbours, getting locked out, keys not working in the locks, the wrong roommate, the wrong dorm.  And it goes on & on. 99% are friendly faces thus far.

Today is Saturday & I have reached my last workday of the week, with tomorrow off. Thank freakin' goodness. But don't you think that that means I can go to the loo and NOT get asked for a lightbulb or a room change or a TV. I need someone, a kind soul of the northern hemisphere persuasion, to mail me a disguise. I think black hair dye and a paste on beard (I'm a redhead, I couldn't grow a beard if I used Miracle Gro) will suit me fine. I'm going into the witless protection program, where I'll be protected against the dimwitted here who think I actually work 24/7.  At least in Shuttles no one asked me to drive them out to Willie Field if I wasn't actually behind the wheel of a Delta at the time.

The boss arrived yesterday and already we are all up in his face with he'p he'p me cries de coeur. He's a FNG, but handling it all like a trooper. He was not put in an easy position at all in terms of the timing of his arrival here, at the very tail end with no opportunity to have the "keys" handed over to him by the Winterover supervisor in this department.

As soon as people start recognizing who he is & the role he plays he'll be getting a lot of whispered asides and free beers of the Can You Do Something For Me kind. He's going to do fine.

I went outside for the first time in 72 + hours today, to fetch keys from another building. Invigorating chill in the air. I tried not to mouth breath for fear all the fluid in my lungs would freeze solid and I'd die. Sniffed a bit too heartily in error; my snotty nose was about to run & create snotsicles, so I panicked and sniffed. Ever heard your nose crackle as the damp nose hairs froze it shut? Ayuh, it's cold here. But not so much more without the wind than I recall Quebec or Montreal being, though the utter lack of humidity changes the rules some.

Despite being still ill, I heard rumours of Aurora possibilities tonight, and I want to get outside to see them, if not them then just the night sky will suit me. We've been overcast a lot lately, went to Condition 2 and had a delayed flight, but we're clear now. I yearn to see that sky again, the one I glimpsed the other night in shock & awe.

I promise I will bundle up in multiple layers and respect the cold before I go out. I don't want to get more sick. I just want to see the sky.

posted by: coldwish at 15:06 | link | comments |
housing 2005-06

Thursday, August 25, 2005
Snot & Nijinsky Snow

You think about these things when you are sick. Or rather your head is so full of it it is no wonder your brain is pre-occupied by it. Snot. Snotsicles. Bloody snot. All these are fodder for meal time conversations. McMurdo denizens seem unflappable about the coarsest of dinner repartee. Which is a good thing, since we all live, work, eat, shit and sleep in close company with each other.
 
My throat is not so sore right now, but like all good harbingers of doom, it harbinged accurately my current state of…well, doom. It has morphed into a head cold, which is irritating and achy, but not so bad. But it also split south and went into my chest, where the coughing is exhausting and scary. It is somewhat productive, but not yet green. So not infected, I assume, with all my medical knowledge & training. (Ha!) Got sent home early from work yesterday, went to bed about 4:30pm and slept right through (though not solidly) to about 11pm where I swayed onto my feet and headed downstairs to the galley for some sustenance.
 
Y’ever have one of those days where you think about becoming a sword-swallower? I know that seems to be a non sequitur but bear with me here. Imagine being a sword-swallower, being able to relax your throat to that extent where you can stick things down it. (Get your gawdamn minds out of the gutter you Linda Lovelace fans, really, I'm sick!! You know, great heaping bloody gobs of snot on my tissues blowing right through onto my hands? Got it? Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.) If you were a sword-swallower and had an itchy throat, what would you be capable of  doing? Would you tilt our head back and just pop a serrated knife down your throat? Or would you be capable, and tempted enough, to find a bottle brush and pop that down there? Because, y’know, dry toast feels good at 11pm in Antarctica, but thoughts do turn to a more effective way of scratching the unscratchable itch way past the back of your throat.
 
I sat in the deserted galley--what a treat! One only afforded to those who winter, before the hordes descend in Mainbody—and watched the weather outside. Third & 4th flights of Winfly have been delayed a few days due to weathuh! We are at Condition 2 with blowing snow.
 
The snow was blowing & gusting & sliding around corners. All outside glowed yellow in the lights from the building, so the whole winter scene was golden and warm looking. But I could feel the chill through the window, where I watched. Even in the depths of misery, mouth-breathing, hacking cough, sinus headaches & bloody snotty nose, I still sat looking outside marveling at the miracle of Antarctica. The snow was alive in that fascinating deadly beautiful way that fire is. I can sit watching a fire for ages, knowing it can burn me. This snarling swiftly slipping sneaking snow like smoke and fire could also kill me. It streaked across the ground ankle height, dodging this way & that, whirling & twirling in competitive gusts up into building high snow devils. I imagined myself a goddess looking down on earth watching the clouds move across the surface, sped up for my eyes where time serves a different purpose.  Occasional great gusts would prevail and all the snow would act in accordance, accede to the demands of that one direction and swirl in concert one way, then around a corner would swoop a protesting gust and they would meet between buildings with a West Side Story choreographed violence twisting in on itself.
 
So alive. I wanted to be outside in it. If I had felt better, I would have gone out. But I was content to be the warm observer from safe inside the galley, hypnotized by the endless fights, arguments, surreptitious encounters, and joyous dances of the blowing snow.
 
I may be full of snot with a hacking cough, but dammit, I’m in Antarctica. My misery is conditional and only reaches a part of me, my heart is still abrim with glory. There is not a moment where I feel awful enough I can’t recognize where I am and love it.
 
This will be a good season.

posted by: coldwish at 22:43 | link | comments (3) |
housing 2005-06

Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Cough Drops & Winter Darkness

Revelation #1: In NZ they have cough drops with ANESTHETIC in them.
 
Do you know how wonderful this product is? Do you realize how much I will be importing illegally back to the US when I get off the Ice and have finished traveling in NZ? Can you imagine what a pleasure it is to pop one of these mentholated throat lozenges in your mouth when your sore throat is threatening to give out on you? Focus on this: First, the spot on your tongue, after judicious sucking of the drop in that one location, starts turning numb. Then the inside of your cheeks become a bit insensitive, when you salivate more, and swallow, the effect starts moving on down into your throat. And there comes bliss. Pure numbing unadulterated illegal-in-the-US pain-free bliss. Once you get over the sensation that your dentist was just in your mouth with a slightly off-aim shot of novocaine, and realize that you can actually swallow without wincing, then you nod off to bed.
 
Revelation #2: Much of my sore throat issue has to do with the fact I haven’t SHUT UP since I landed in LAX yea these many days ago.
 
That and the dryness. My first day here (was it really only yesterday?) I had to drink gallons of water before I even had to pee. And trust me when I say it was only a teaspoonful. I was far from clear & copious. But I haven’t stopped since. Mostly because my throat hurts so much in a dry scratchy over-exercised Antarctic kind of way. Every meal is a social & conversational whirl of catching up & getting to know. Raucous laughter and conversations I could only have on the Ice. Yes, we talk about travels & off-Ice stuff, but just a bit. Here and now we just let it rip, unbound by human taboos or decency. After all, it’s a rough continent. Did you expect us to be any less potty-mouthed here than stateside?  We are smart people but we are not delicate.
 
Mostly I am staying indoors, the cold is brisk, still hovering ambiently around -29F. But the windchill is kicking the snow up and the temperature down to about -83F. And you do not underestimate the windchill in sucking the heat right out of your bones.
 
Revelation #3:  I love the darkness.  It suits the place.
 
My memories of winter playtime, during my childhood in Nova Scotia, are almost entirely memories of playing outside in the dark under a clear sky. The sun went down early and by then time I got home from school it was often dusk. It would be solid dark by the time we headed out to go sledding, build forts in the snowbanks, play pond hockey, or just roll laughing down the hill landing contently face up at the bottom looking at a sky that held mystery and wonder, both beautiful & comforting.  I will forever, as an adult many decades from these memories, yearn for this kind of playtime. When it snows at night, I yearn for the knock on my door asking if I can come out to play. I yearn for a buddy to go out with. I go out alone, but I want to go out and play, wrestle, climb, jump, make snow angels, contemplate my breath and the chill realization that snow just went down my neck with someone else. I want to taste it, dive in it, fall in it, slide fast on it, go poof into it. And have someone echo my laughter.
 
I am at my happiest when it snows.  It does something to my heart each time, and I am utterly content to smile unbearably at complete strangers. Very few times in my life have I been able to go outside in the snow as an adult with an understanding playmate. It is when I feel most lonely, when there is no one to play with me in the freshly fallen or still swirling snow.
 
McMurdo right now feels most right to me. It is dark from about 4pm to about 11am, with the rest being dusk. I want to go outside and play in it. I am actively seeking play buddies in my travels from galley table to table at meals, sussing out the likely candidates. It is too dangerous to go out alone, far from town. It is cold and treacherous out there, and must be respected. I somehow thought, and perhaps it is too early to know, that the short days would affect my mood, as they do in Northern winters. But what I find-- with the snow mounded high and drifted willy-nilly about us, the sky shockingly blue above us, the stars sparkling loudly over head, the wind stealing the warm breath from my mouth—is that I am buoyed up immensely.  I am deeply affected by this place as it triggers all my favorite memories and feeds my soul with possibilities.
 
None of which--this hyperactivity of feeling, this sense of invincibility that comes with joy, this over-socialisation with old friends and strangers--lends itself well to healing.
 
I am afraid to cough as it makes my chest hurt and my head ache, my eyes tear up and my throat slam shut. I am not well. I am disregarding this in the face of all I must absorb.
 
Tomorrow I start my intensive training on the job, feet first over the abyss of the season facing us all. I fear the stress, but I do not fear that I’ll do a fine job. I just hope I can calm down enough to get well.

posted by: coldwish at 21:05 | link | comments (5) |
housing 2005-06

Monday, August 22, 2005
Truly, Madly,Deeply

How could I have forgotten even one iota of the reverence and all-consuming love I have for this place? I must have though, because when I landed I was charmed and seduced all over again, anew. I gazed up to Erebus and there it was looming darkly like a shadow in the sky, for the first time a touch menacing. It was simply a grey outline, with sprints of low thin wispy clouds between it and town. McMurdo, from Pegasus Field, appears closely nestled at the foot of this great volcano. It is a marvellous perspective.

I sat in the front seat of one of the Airporters (097) for the view, and it was new and magnificent, yet familiar and beloved. The route back to town in winter is more direct than in summer when the sea ice between Pegasus and town is thinner. I had not appraoched town this way before. So much is new & different.

I am back home, and it is a homecoming. I feel I have returned to the place I feel most joyous. Some people go to church and seek gods for their joy. I go to the ends of the earth to have my heart crack open, to make me vulnerable and strong both. I feel raw, peeled of my defenses, in love. Truly, madly, deeply.

I have arrived home safely.

posted by: coldwish at 15:47 | link | comments (1) |
housing 2005-06

Sunday, August 21, 2005
Winterovers, Jetlag & Boomerangs

The winterovers are starting to trickle off the Ice as the Winfly folks are flown down. These are people who have been isolated with just over 200 people for about 6 months, in the dark. Now you would think they would come blinking off their planes blinded by the light, but they are more blinded by the fact that so many faces they glimpse are unfamiliar ones. You can see the shock on their faces when they are looking at a non-winterover face, even one they were familiar with before they spent the night. I have been looked at hungrily and eagerly, as a familiar face, but still they scan my features slower than the average person, and take a few nanoseconds longer to register my expressions. Almost as if my features, being alien to their brains, take longer to combine into some semblance of a whole face. There are lags in response as they interpret what they are seeing.

It is odd but charming, and it only takes them moments to get past it and incorporate you back into their pantheon of recognized faces. But when they encounter a bunch of strangers, the pause is more significant, as they scan the crowd, and look for familiar faces they know, intellectually, cannot be there. But the multitude of new faces don't parse for them.  It rocks them back on their heels. It must feel unsafe, and then freeing. To have the strictures of familiarity & repetition lifted from them. The fear, then the realization they are no longer bound by the small community and can invent themselves anew for each person they meet. Or so I imagine.

Right now my imagination is telling me I am about to import the Crud into this closed population of winterovers. I arrived in Chch with a sore throat I assumed to be one of dryness from the flying. Well, it ain't going away with throat lozenges & lots of water. In fact, I'm imbibing so much water I'm sloshing to the loo even more than I usually do.  I so don't want to start my season unwell, but it seems inevitable at this point. All my colds & flu-type deals start with a sore throat and devolve from there. So I am basically screwed.

News of the boss, Mike: He is coming down last flight of Winfly. Post-appendectomy travel having been approved and probably waivers up the wazoo signed absolving the NSF & Raytheon from any & all possible responsibility should he develop septicemia or some such as a result of his surgery. Though it was only laporoscopic surgery, and he did not have his appendix burst beforehand, so relatively minor.  Both Marisa & I are relieved to hear he will be coming down. We both thought it would just be too dangerous for us to have that kind of control.

The weather here in Chch is unseasonably warm, and according to the locals has been so since these last 6 weeks. The flowering spring trees are in full bloom, as are many bushes. The grass is green like spring. I cringe to hear it because winter is far from over and I was brought up on an apple orchard. If this happens to fruit trees and then there is a frost later before true spring, you can lose the crop entirely as the buds are killed.  I worry for the farmers here, but there are not many in the area affected. But still.

I went to bed last night about 7:30pm after an hour in the tub lounging and reading a mystery with damp hands. The Y(MCA on Hereford St in Christchurch) has a bathroom with a tub, and though I am not a tub person, the temptation was entirely too great, and I did figure I could be warm & horizontal without actually going to bed yet. I HAD to stay up, refuse to nap, or my schedule would be shot all to hell.  Not that it isn't still, but at least I got a full night's sleep.

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a 4am flight to the Ice. So all my efforts at achieving normalcy of schedule in this part of the world will be sabotaged. But they must schedule our flight to arrive at noon when the sun will actually be up above the horizon for an hour or so. If the weather doesn't cooperate during that window of sun, we boomerang, come back to Chch and try again the next day. many want to boomerang so they can have Monday to go skiing. I hope we don't. Getting up that early ONCE is enough of a sacrifice for my dream.  But, I could do with some more time in Chch hunting down the things I didn't recall that I forgot until I unpacked here.

Must go, the loo is calling me.

posted by: coldwish at 17:15 | link | comments (2) |
between 2005

Saturday, August 20, 2005
On the Flipside (Once More With Paragraphs!)

Oh just shoot me now, this computer is all funky with the blogging here, I will make it more legible when I hit the Ice. I did have paragraphs for a bit there then the blogosphere sucked it all up & smooshed it into this odd mess.

***Later edit including some of the spacing. I may have recalled the line breaks in error on Tuwhare's poem. Forgive me.****

Hi all, I have arrived safely in NZ, as far south as commercial flights can take me. It is Saturday here.  On Monday morning, barring ill will from the weather gods I will fly to Antarctica when the sun is still only 40 minutes above the horizon each 24 hours but hovering bloodily just below the crack of the mountain range and casting powerful light across the land nonetheless. I yearn to see this myself.

Thus far it appears the first of the 4 Winfly flights has made it south safely, unboomeranged. So we are on schedule. I stepped out of the Christchurch airport here along with about 50 other Ice folks, mostly returnees from previous seasons, to be handed 3 days worth of per diem $450 NZ (about $360 US) for the next two nights accommadations and food. And what did I do with it? I rushed right out to a bookstore and bought myself the book I had yearned for since my last sojourn in NZ: Deep River Talk: Collected Poems by Hone Tuwhare (Too'-far-ray), a NZ poet of Maori descent whose poem Rain I first read in a loo in a cafe in Greymouth when I was sheltering from exactly that.

Rain

I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something special
smell of you
when the sun
cakes the ground

the steady drum-roll
sound you make
when the wind drops

But if I should not
hear smell or feel
or see you 
you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

Hone Tuwhare

The owner of the Greymouth shop had painted this poem on three walls wrapping around the loo, with a second poem less memorable and astonishing on the 4th wall. I was startled to fall madly in love with this poet whilst relieving myself, but stranger things have happened to me in toilets. You may ask me to expound on that in the future, because you know I will.

Tuwhare's poetry reminds me, often, when he is addressing women, of the sensual begging tone of Leonard Cohen's old poetry. Words spoken/written in such a way that if faced with the author aiming them at me, for me, about me, I would fail to raise any substantial defense against a seduction in words.

But I digress.

I am travelling, even if only to get from A to Y, with Z arriving shortly, my ultimate destination. The gate at LAX was abrim with people collected from across the US, all headed for the Ice. Enough so, trickling in at various times from 4 hours before departure to 30 mins, that it was a gathering of old friends playing catch up and gossiping about previous seasons. Many FNGs, but mostly returnees.

I met up with my FNG co-worker, Marisa, in the Housing Dept, and we are going to get a long famously. I'm sure that without much effort at all we shall be able to lower the tone of the entire station with our irreverent banter.

Of our boss, Michael, of the recent appendectomy, we have no more recent news. Will he or won't he make it to the Ice during Winfly? Marisa & I get along so famously so far, if he doesn't make it down, he may not have an easy time integrating into the department. Ok, so he's the boss, but it may take a major effort to gain control over his two wayward and mouthy redheads. I have brought red hair dye for him so that he can be assimilated when he arrives.

I think all of you should wander over to the right of this page and find the name Keith Martin in my links list, for he has a wonderful collection of photos of the nacreous clouds I so look forward to. I look forward to meeting him, as he has been a wonderful correspondent during his winter season.

I am pooped. Really freakin' pooped. Almost drunk with poopedness. I am wandering around Christchurch in the effort to stay awake to a decent hour of the day before I place myself gratefully & lengthily horizontal in a bed and give up the effort. I hope to, through this suffering, adjust my clock to this time zone. I head to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Centre) tomorrow for some HR & Safety crap (oh pardon me, beneficial & informative orientation to help me with my stay on the Ice) and to do the ECW gear scramble.

This time I am so much better off & I fully intend to help those FNGs with me with their choices of clothing. Last year was a nightmare of confusion and conflicting messages of help from people mostly too busy to help me as they chose their own clothing in a state of often competitive semi-clothedness. I will try to lend what I can of my experience to the FNGs in terms of helping them through the process. What is the having of knowledge & experience if not to share & help others in gaining it less painfully than you yourself have?

I hate flying. Or perhaps not the time on the plane, so much as the shuffle drag of self & bags to & fro between terminals. There is no elegant way of moving through an airport, and I wonder how the beautiful people do it in their heels and fine bespoke suits, coiffed, Starbucks-sucking, strides taking them from gate to gate. When I just look so exhausted I want to shave my head and be a monk on the top of some mountain (oooh ooohh can I have Mt Erebus please?) with no material goods whatsoever. I guess it's just more moving, isn't it? Schlepping of shit. Even when that shit is paired down to humidifier, socks, underwear, 2 pairs of jeans, flannel jammies and the essential toiletries. It is still just too much to be responsible for. Is this what I have been reduced too? Making this much effort about THINGS?

Okay, exhaustion talking. But I think next year I will be even lighter. I will live entirely from skua. Remind me, ask me, to explain the semantics of skua, in its many uses. But wait perhaps until I am somewhat more compos mentis and the world has stopped feeling akilter and I am settled under the nacreous clouds of the southern-most continent in the world. For there perhaps I will regain the remainder of my brain function.

posted by: coldwish at 01:02 | link | comments (4) |
between 2005

Thursday, August 18, 2005
Off To See The Wizard

The thing about little kids is that they fall in love so easily, and when you leave them you break their hearts. But only for a little while, then they get on with life.

Watching their crestfallen faces as I explain that I'm going away on a big adventure for a long time; perhaps it's my heart that's breaking.

I'm off, I'm off, I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Ice.

Catch you on the flipside, folks!

posted by: coldwish at 11:18 | link | comments (5) |
between 2005

 

C'est Moi, Genevieve:

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