Day 35: Five Weeks and Beyond...

The title of this blog has become meaningless. My goal was to become independent in the five weeks of my other half being out of town. Situations have now arisen which require him to be gone longer than five weeks, and it turns out I'm not and will never be fully independent.

Regardless, yesterday was the day that he was supposed to get back, so I've been doing a lot of reflecting on the original intent of the blog.

I went camping with my friends Bill and Tony this weekend. It was a wonderful exercise in independence, being free from what ties us down to things that take our independence from us. Luckily, though, in spite of being away from civilization I did get cell phone service way out there on the flats and that ended up, yet again, saving my ass when i had another car emergency.

I think I've pretty much decided against ever owning a car again, ever, ever, ever. As I've illustrated in earlier blogs, they are more trouble than they're worth, and in a town like Skagway I think you can be a much more independent person without relying on an automobile. In the end, this particular car emergency was alleviated by the efforts of Tony, Leona, and a few Canadians that I've never met, which begs the question: So, i didn't need Stimee to get me out of the woods (literally) on this one--so maybe i'm independent from him--, but I still contributed absolutely nothing to the process of rescuing the car, so am I really self-sufficient, at all? Not in the least.

Apart from the car emergency, the camping in itself was a beautiful end to the five weeks in which I'd initially set out to claim my independence. Being out on the flats, where we could see the road but it was far enough away that when a car drove by its sound didn't penetrate the silence, where we cooked without electricity and ate without washing dishes, where our dogs could roam without any negative consequences, was perfect. I've wanted to camp all winter and finally, now that it's spring, got the chance. Camping, I think, is one of the truest, most erudite forms of human independence because, in spite of technological advances like flashlights and gore-tex, it brings us back to our roots of being as purely independent as the human race ever has been. Sure, we sort of rely on our tents and sleeping bags. But there's no tv; there's no electricity; there's no Internet; there's no frozen dinners; there's no central heating. None of the modern conveniences we've come to rely on are available when you're camping. And even though we weren't even that far away from civilization (not like the amazingness of canyon city and beyond...) it was a brilliant, peaceful end to the week. I read a lot of House of Leaves, and I talked a lot with Bill and Tony. And i did a lot of thinking while I was trying to fall asleep...

Today for Easter I went to have dinner with some members of my Skagway family. Instead of driving up to their house, I drove down to the airport, parked my car, and hiked up. If Stimee were here, would I have done that at all? Probably not... If Stimee were here, would I have gone camping? Maybe... After watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees on opening night, I went out to have a celebratory beer. If Stimee were here, would I have done that? Probably not; once we're in for the night we're usually in.

But now that he's been gone five weeks and i've spread my wings on my own, when he does get back, I'll still do these things. Maybe we'll take separate routes to get to the friends' house up on the hill, him driving and me walking if he doesn't want to hike. Maybe we'll go and do different things on some nights instead of needing to be at the same place most of the time we're off work. Maybe I'll feel ok about going out to have a beer on my own without him because he just feels like relaxing at home.

One thing seems certain in my mind: I won't be calling him constantly when he gets back anymore, because I won't need to.

It used to be that when 5:30 rolled around, I'd sit and wait for him to call and if it got to be 6 or 6:30 i'd start calling him incessantly, needing to know what he was doing so I could go meet up with him. If there's one thing that these five weeks have accomplished, it has been to give me the confidence and -- yes -- independence to have a life of my own and be able to not just do the things i want but to know exactly what it is that i feel like doing. And maybe that won't always line up with what my other half feels like doing-- but maybe that's ok.

Although the five weeks have passed, I think I'll continue posting entries to this blog as independent moments and thoughts present themselves.

One thing I would like to add on a tangient: My new hero, as an independent woman, is the main female character (Shoshana) in Tarantino's latest masterpiece. Gorgeous-- check. Self-sufficient-- check. Badass-- check. Daring, intelligent, carries a gun in her cute handbag in case she needs to shoot a Nazi with her perfectly manicured hands-- check, check, check. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Day 22: a functioning member of society

I feel at this point that I'm a responsible, functioning member of society, unlike the person I used to be.

In the time since Stimee's been gone, I have accomplished the following feats:
--Got my car out of no man's land
--Fixed his car
--Paid the landline phone bill
--Paid the cell phone bill
--Paid the electric bill
--Gotten us car insurance
--Handled the housing issue that arose
--Ran a kitchen for a week on my own
--Increased how many calories I can burn in 33 minutes on the elliptical by well over a hundred
--Cooked many homemade meals
--Stood up for myself and told off someone who deserved a punch in the face

That last one happened last night. I tersely informed a former flame that his advances were not acceptable, giving him a shove (which I wish would've been a punch in the face in retrospect) and eliciting a "whooooaaaaa" and a look of admiration from the person he'd been talking to at the bar. When he tried to explain anything away, I wouldn't have it. I merely gave him a steely glare and the words "Watch it." He stared back and was the first to break eye contact.

Something any independent woman would have done; but something that I would not have done in the past. I'd have either waited for someone around me to confront him, or I would have laughed it off, happy for the attention. (?!?!) But, before Stimee, I never realized that I'm a human being deserving of respect. I also think maybe I never respected myself. And I now realize that self-respect is an integral attribute of the independent person.

The encounter made me realize that, although this person claims to want to be friends, I will from now on make every effort to avoid him at all costs. It seems that just wanting to be friends with him may have led him to believe that I am still the pathetic lonely girl I was over a year ago or that I'm not happy to be in a monogamous relationship with the love of my life. I have no room in my life for "friends" who don't respect me!

In other news, today I finally got the car insurance all figured out for Stimee and me. It was easier than I thought it'd be, and cheaper. It feels good that, without him here to do everything and/or remind me to do the things I say i'll do, I'm still taking care of everything that needs to get taken care of. I'm taking care of the house (paying the bills, resolving issues, and cleaning); I'm taking care of the car (fixing it, getting insurance, cleaning it); I'm taking care of myself (working on my own; demanding respect; getting in shape; socializing and having a good time) all without needing someone else to do these things for me or ensure that they happen.

Although it now seems that my five weeks to independence will be cut short, I think I've done a good job of expediting my progress.

Day 16: I'm Walking on Sunshine. WHOAAA.

Today I feel the same unreal euphoria that I felt when I first got the call from ATA in Ketchikan offering me a job. I was working at Delmar and after I closed the store and called them back, I literally jumped for joy and sounded my barbaric yawps. It was the best news I'd heard in a really, really long time.

I feel that same way today, more than three years later. Today it was as I sat in the living room playing with Merlin that my phone went off. Looking at it I saw an unfamiliar Skagway 983 number. I took a deep breath. This was it, I knew. When I answered I immediately tried to gauge Bruce's voice. Did he sound excited? No, he sounded a little like he was getting ready to disappoint me. No! Wait! Just there, his voice lifted! He's going to... no, maybe he's not, is he going to make or break my week here?

And then it came. "I was just wondering if you were interested in working for us as an interpretive ranger this summer?" That moment matched the bliss that I experienced that day in Delmar in early 2007. It's all I can think about now. It's been all I could think about since my interview on Thursday, but I was trying to force my mind to other topics until I heard back for sure. When I interviewed for Admin Assistant at the clinic I talked about the job with everyone as if I already had it, and you can see where that got me.

This job means I no longer have to have the gnawing worry at the back of my mind: "what if i don't get the park service job?" "what other jobs do i need to apply for?" "how long before i know?" "what if..." It means I have a job that, by all descriptions, I'll love, working with people who, as far as I've met anyway, are pretty awesome.

I was telling a friend this evening how it gives me a torn feeling, going to work for the same company Stimee works for. "I want to try and be independent," I insisted. She gave me a look. "This isn't a town to be independent in," was her reply. As far as the job market goes, I'm feeling that she's right.

Stimee called today from Brazil while I was at work with a house emergency. And, guess what, sports fans-- I handled it on my own. Without even feeling a sense of fear or timidity as I did so, in a situation that normally would have thrown me through the roof or at least brought on frustrated tears.

I also handled Day One of running the kitchen on my own, without a hitch. Everything went perfectly. Like clockwork. I made deliveries to two people I've never met and one couple whose house I wasn't even sure was the right one, and I served five regulars at lunch. All by myself. I made everything for today-- chili, cornbread, salad, and fresh fruit-- as well as getting a head start on tomorrow's cole slaw and pudding. I was so on top of things that I had time to play Tetris.

Tomorrow... I'll be bringing along some of my Park Service literature to the kitchen to begin studying up on the history of Skagway in my free moments as it'll now be my job to educate people on it.

When I first moved to Skagway, I had so many moments that led me to thoughts of "Is this really my life? This isn't a dream? I'm really doing this?" Today was one of those days. There wasn't anything extraordinary about it; I didn't see whales or bears or climb a mountain or anything, but I ran a kitchen BY MYSELF (which is something I have relatively miniscule experience in and never saw myself doing for money); I took care of the house issue BY MYSELF (when a year ago I had a nervous breakdown every time I had to call my landlord); and I got a job that I chased down all BY MYSELF. And I didn't feel nervous or apprehensive about at least the first two. Is this really me? Is this the same me who, last winter, didn't even make eye contact with anyone because she was so self-conscious? This is me, reborn.

"Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again. From the depths of the earth you will again bring me up." -- Ps 71:20

"For God did not give us a spirit of fear (or timidity depending on translation), but of power, of love, and of self-discipline." -- Our team verse my senior year of volleyball

"...that God works all things together for the good of those who serve him." --Romans 8:28

(Yep, I have a BA in religious studies, and there's plenty more where that came from!)

Lucky Day 13

Each day on the elliptical I try not to stare obsessively at how many calories I've burned. In my workout log I write down the end result, but I try not to watch it as I'm going because I don't want it to affect the workout. I want to work at the level I'm comfortable at, but if I stare at the calories it'll make me want to push harder than I can or else make me feel like I can relax. I want the end result-- how many calories I've burned-- to be, well, honest, I guess.

I don't count calories in the foods I eat. I never have. It's never been something I've needed to worry about. I eat healthy and that, to me, is what matters-- not calories, fat, or carbs. I didn't join the gym because I want to lose weight but because I want to be in shape and I have the goal of Yukon River Quest in mind. So calories burned doesn't mean anything in terms of comparing it with how much food I eat; for me it's a record of how much closer to being in shape I get. Honestly, I'm not sure how many calories on a 33-minute elliptical workout is a good goal to have, but the only person I'm challenging is myself and, like Monica, that's my favorite kind of competition.

I've had my gym membership just over two weeks. The first time I kept track of calories on my elliptical workout was exactly two weeks ago and, at that time, I had done 200 calories. Each day since then I have either stayed the same or gotten better (with the exception of Wednesday, when I hadn't had much to eat and thus didn't have much fuel to run on) so that today I hit 310 calories easily. Each day that I improve is a teeny tiny victory for me in the same way my hikes on the trail this summer were victories: when I hiked to Canyon City, I made it from the trailhead in exactly three hours. It took Stimee and the crew longer than that, and they bypassed the first 1.6 miles (the steepest uphill/downhill of the trail); the same way enduring the hike to Lost Lake, which Stimee calls the toughest trail in Skagway, was a small victory.

The same way blocking Vanessa from Waterford's hits in volleyball in high school was always a victory, when our eyes met at the net and she was so confident she was going to kill us, she who was shorter than me but claimed her height as 6'1".

Overcoming obstacles and accomplishing things that we didn't think we were capable of is always a victory. Walking on the river from the ballfields to the point and back without feeling like I was going to die was a pretty big deal for me. It's really not that long, probably a little over 2 miles altogether, but I'm a smoker and have had a very sedentary winter. I think that challenging myself, as opposed to rising to other people's challenges, is a pretty ballsy thing to do in general. If you don't meet someone else's standards, if you're a confident enough person, that's ok because what's really important is how you feel about yourself. If you don't rise to your own challenges, what else do you have? Being disappointed in yourself, I think, is a lot worse than someone else being disappointed in you.

Each day when I come home from the gym I have hit a new personal best on the elliptical. I don't do it for anyone but me. And there are few things more satisfying than that.

Day...12?

My toilet stopped working. My live-in handyman wasn't here to fix it. Plunging didn't work. I looked up solutions online and tried them to no avail. After a few days, it started working again. Independence: 1.

Stimee's car stopped working again outside the post office. Wouldn't start. Another good samaritan (i'm meeting more and more of those lately) noticed the sign around my neck that said DAMSEL IN DISTRESS and helped me take care of it, meeting me at the hardware store and helping me get the parts needed to get it going again, then fixed it all for me. Independence: -1.

I called the park service to check on the status of the two jobs I'd applied for. Didn't get one (they had 71 qualified applicants), but interviewed for the other. I'm hoping I get it. To be honest, I'm a little conflicted about the idea of working for the park service. It's a great organization and the job seems like a great fit for me. On the one hand. On the other, I feel like it'll make me seem less independent: meet a guy who works for the park service, then a year later oh what do you know I'm wearing the same uniform. Does that contradict my desire to be independent? Then again, i chased the job on my own...

I was talking to my brother a month or two ago about the fact that my parents toy with the idea of living here for a little while when they reture. I told him that it would be great if they did. His response was surprise: "I thought you moved to Alaska to get away from Mom and Dad." Well, kind of. A little bit, maybe. But that desire had to do more with wanting to be on my own, away from mom and dad's saving graces whenever I need to do laundry or get a ride somewhere. Now that I've had that and the cord is successfully cut, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing for them to share my town.

Tomorrow is the last day my boss is here before he takes off for a week in Juneau. This means that from Monday through Friday next week, I will be running the senior lunch program without him. I have a friend helping out but still-- I'll be in charge. How's that for independent? I guess we'll find out, depending on whether I rock it or bomb it entirely.

I'm starting to get a sense that, in terms of the original intent of this blog, I'm managing pretty well being independent from Stimee. With all the things that the universe has thrown at me, I feel like I've handled a lot better than I would have 2 years ago (and, a lot better than i DID a year and 3 months ago) without the comfort and support of my boyfriend. Sure, it'd have been a lot easier if he was here to help with some of it, but the fact is that i don't absolutely NEED him. I can function without him.

And yet... like I've said before.. I don't think anyone is truly independent. A loner living in the woods still relies on the natural cycles of things, the game population, the freezing and thawing, and all the things our ancestors worshipped and depended on. Maybe this is Buddhist philosophy leaking through... maybe true enlightenment comes from ceasing to be dependent on anything else. The escape from the samsara world, to my recollection, comes from the release of all one's ties to it. In a nutshell... that means being truly independent which, physically in this life, is nearly impossible. Spiritually, though, i can see the appeal.

To be independent spiritually might mean freeing oneself from the things that we CAN control our dependency to: our desires to please people; our desires to be accepted; our wants and "needs"; our attachments to money; our materialism; our pettiness and things like gossiping, smoking, obsessions with the media, and so on. But doesn't this also mean severing ties with other people? We spend time with other people because we care about them and we like the way they make us feel to be in their company; are these desires things that prevent us from being truly enlightened and truly independent?

I'm not sure... but I do know that I am a lot more independent than I used to be, and that I don't think I'll ever be 100% self-sufficient. But like I said-- no one is.

Day 10: worldly women

It seems that each day I find myself writing abuot a different form of independence.
The one that comes to mind today is spiritual independence and freedom of thought.

Short Background Info: I wasn't raised very religious but went to a very Evangelical Christian high school. Since we hadn't been raised in the Evangelical/Republican tradition, my brother and I found ourselves on the outer fringe in a lot of class discussions. I rebelled then, and I rebel now.

One of the first papers I had to write in high school was an opinion piece to answer the question "Should a woman be able to be President?" I wasn't really sure how to write an entire paper on it without filling the page with "yes"es. The struggle that I faced in high schol to maintain my identity and independence as a young woman is one that comes up almost every day when I log onto facebook and see what the Evangelicals on my friends list are posting about.

Someone I went to high school with had a feeling from God during church one day while watching the pastor get ready. She wanted to be part of that world, so she informed us all that God wanted her to be a pastor's wife. Not a pastor. Though she would have made an excellend reverend, the culture she had grown up in simply did not allow that possibility. Why? Because she was missing a Y-chromosome.

Someone else I went to high school with was a victim of statutory rape. She, the victim, got in school suspension for it.

My busy life in Albany involved a lot of different music industry related hobbies: from being in a band to managing a band to booking shows and promoting bands, I loved the independent music industry. When I toured with an Evangelical choir one summer, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the sound boards so I attempted to be one of the volunteers to help the (male) director with all the cords and microphones. Apparently, electronics are a man's world, because only tenors and basses were chosen after I expressed an interest.

During Sunday school one week in high school, a family friend whose kids often rode to school with my brother and me was teaching. He expressed a point of view that I vehemently disagreed with. After I spoke my objections and debated with him for maybe fifteen minutes, backing everything with scripture that I knew from memory as every good Christian girl does, the man never made eye contact with me again. He likes his women to keep silence.

It hasn't at all been a struggle to break away from the Evangelical world, because I so disagree with almost all of its outward expressions of faith. The one that bothers me the most, though, beyond its politicizing of religion and vice versa, is its degradation of women. The reason it bothers me so much is because I still have so many friends who are still in that world who will never question their value as a human being because they've never known any different.

In that culture, feminine independence means lack of faith. The norm is to go to college (preferably Christian) where one may or may not get a degree which she will likely never use because her reason for going to college is not an education but to meet her husband. College is where we create our futures; for Evangelical men this means finding a career path in which to serve God, and for women it means finding an Evangelical man whose career path and serving God she can support by marrying him and making him babies. To break this norm is seen as an anomaly, and the woman is often seen as being less of a servant of God than her married, babymaking peers. Single women past the age of, what, 20? 21? are a hard nut to crack in Evangelical circles. Is she divorced? Sinner. Maybe she's a lesbian, which would be even worse. She wants to be a pastor?? HERESY!!

I see intelligent, promising, down to earth women falling prey to what can only be called mind control, to use a phrase I hate. I toured with and went to high school with so many women who could have contributed to the world as lawyers, doctors, counselors, ministers, or entrepreneurs. Instead -- and, please, make no mistake, I do not at all oppose the idea of housewifery as a valid life choice if in fact it is a choice that one makes for oneself -- they marry young and don't work, relying on their husbands to do everything for them. If anything were to happen to their husbands, do these women know how to take care of themselves? Do they have resumes to give potential employers?

I dont believe that everyone's life choices should mirror my own. I certainly don't believe that everyone should subscribe to my particular breed of faith mixed with cynicism. However, I do believe that everyone should get a chance to experience life. And I think everyone should get a chance to see what's out there before deciding that their career choice will be wife/mother. Granted, my sole ambition in life is to be a mother, so maybe I'm being hypocritical. But to be taught without being told outright tha tyour only use as an adult is to marry and make babies causes a few negative consequences.

First off, it, combined with the Augustine-sanctioned ban on premarital sex (although the Evangelicals swear it comes from misinterpreted scripture and don't even know who Augustine is), causes Evangelical women to marry much too soon and much too young. When your mindset is that the first nice Christian boy you meet will be your soulmate, you don't get a chance to see what else is out there. You might force yourself into an abusive relationship because you just don' tknow any different. And you certainly won't leave because you can't do anything else.

Second, and most important (i'm only going for two on this), it takes away our independence as women. It takes away what so many of our predecessors, whether they were Christian or not, fought tooth and nail to give us. India has had a female prime minister, as has England. Why not the United States? Because half the nation is Evangelical.

This is why, regardless of her political leanings, i say KUDOS TO SARAH PALIN. Regardless of how you feel about her politics, you have to admit that she did a great thing in coming into the limelight during the last presidential election, whether she realized it at the time or not. She gave Evangelical women someone in the public eye who shares their same values and has made more of herself than just being a housewife. I hope that she may be a catalyst for some of those women I mentioned to take a moment to be able to see themselves in the same light, as independent and capable of making their own decisions.

I know I have.


Supplemental Reading:

Katelyn Beatty's piece about women in the evangelical "faith"

Alisa Harris's reaction

Day 8-9: I want to break free

After everything happened with Allen, I ordered a book from Amazon called "Surviving Domestic Violence." In the emotional state that I found myself, confused and isolated, the book offered nothing to console me and nothing I could relate to. It pissed me off to the max because it only made me feel like, really, absolutely no one, even those whose stories appeared in said book that was designed to make me feel something, understood what I was going through.

A year and two months later, I rediscovered the book. Flipping through it I noticed a section at the end about healing, growing, and moving on. It's an easy enough read, so I dove in.

It was gratifying.

It reminded me of a new kind of independence that I haven't mentioned yet in this blog: freedom from abuse. Like the women in the book, I broke free from one abusive relationship only to have the aftermath hurt more than the relationship itself. But, also like the women in the book, the straw that broke the camel's back was what enlightened me and made me see that I was in a relationship with an abusive alcoholic, the two "a's" i had denied associating with Allen.

I've had the conversation many times with many friends where we discuss our past relationships in comparison to the current one; our conclusion is that the relationship we're in now is what relationships are supposed to be like, and that the relationships we were in before were horribly lacking in many essential things like trust, respect, communication, and other important aspects. Thus, by being in the relationships we're in now, my friends and I are essentially free from the problems that used to plague us in past relationships.

We are free from the paranoia that led our significant others to assume we were cheating on them if we spent social time with someone of the opposite sex; we are free from the degradation that came from our significant others' own insecurities; we are free from the inability to be social without our significant others; we are free from the constant nagging worry that something will push our significant others over the edge; and we're free from the emotional prisons that they had us in out of their need to control us.

I never realized that my exes didn't respect me until my current boyfriend led into this relationship on the premise of mutual respect. I never realized that I didn't have my own friends when Allen and I were together until Allen had been gone six months and I suddenly had friends. I didn't realize I was entirely trapped until the tables were turned and he was the one behind bars.

And now, with all that said, there's another form of independence to check off the list. Independence from relationships that trap me.

Day Seven: I'm Still Alive

I was initially trying to make all of the titles of my entries based on song titles but that kind of failed. Today it actually IS a song title but that's just because it randomly worked.

I keep seeing these commercials for iPhones and blackberries and droids and all those other all-in-one kind of devices (previously referred to by me as "the mark of the beast") where the character in the commercial brags about how they can do everything with their phone. The one that stands out the most is the one where the person says something to the effect of "I need my phone for EVERYTHING" or else "I don't do ANYTHING without my phone." Really? Is that what it's come down to? Is that really something to be bragging about? And, of course the deeper question, what does that say about our culture?

I'm one to constantly criticize our -- western civilization's -- need for quick fixes and easy solutions and things to appeal to our laziness and desire to not do things on our own. Why do things like the swiffer sweeper, the GPS, and toys that teach your kids to read for you exist? Because we're too lazy to want to mop, read a map, and teach our own kids how to read. Smart phones are the epitome not only of our laziness but our absolute dependence on technology.

When you have a phone that encompasses your whole life and something happens to it, what do you do? You freak out because your entire life revolved around the phone. You probably don't have a landline. You may or may not have a computer. You probably don't have maps or a phone book or an address book that isn't in your phone, so if your phone gets broken, your life is severely changed and you suddenly don't know what to do with yourself. Is that really something to be bragging about?

I don't like to be condescending, I generally have a "live and let live" mindset but there are certain times that I think of myself as better than other people. And if you're someone who, like the person in the commercial, can't do anything without their phone, then yes, i think i'm better than you. Isn't technology supposed to improve and enrich our lives? If this is it i'm not sure it's much of an improvement...

In other news, I fixed Stimee's car all by myself. Yay!

Days 5-6...

One of the things I have tactfully not mentioned in my quest for independence is the matter of chemical dependency, and the fact that in my attempts to be less dependent on other things I'm not even discussing my lack of quitting attempts at smoking. I feel like with the increase in exercise it'll naturally follow. And that's the end of that topic.

Since Stimee's been gone, tonight is the first night I'm not being social. And it's not because of a lack of desire in that department, but because of the strong south wind bringing rain and snow right into my face as I walk the mile into town. I had planned on putting the new clamp on stimee's battery tonight but the weather isn't anything I want to spend much time in while doing so. I'm definitely going to do it tomorrow, though.

I like it that when he's gone I still go out and I still have friends over. In past relationships I got an incredible amount of anxiety if I were plunged into a social situation without my other half, even if i was just meeting them somewhere. The idea of walking into the bar and them not being there terrified me. I love it that this is not the case anymore. I've been out every night this week except yesterday, and that was because I had friends over for dinner last night. I really like the freedom of being able to go to the bar and sit with whomever I want and bounce around if I want and play pool with whomever i want-- whether my boyfriend is there with me or not.

This entry feels really weak but I felt like I had to post something every two days or else the blog would fall into a state of whatever it is you'd call it if i just stopped posting entries. In fact it doesn't just feel weak. It IS weak...

Days 3-4: walk a mile in my boots...

What really makes someone independent? It seems to me that we are all dependent on one thing or another, one person or another, to provide us with something we perceive as essential. We rely on our employers and our banks to give us the money we need, we rely on the grocery stores and shipping companies to bring us the food we need, we rely on microwaves and power companies to help us prepare meals. One of the things that I've loved about living in Alaska -- Skagway in particular -- is that I feel I'm less dependent on some of the things that people down south still are. I'm no longer dependent on, for instance, mass merchandisers and corporate outlets to give me the things i "need." I no longer rely on movie theaters to entertain me. I no longer rely on highways to get me where I need to go, and I no longer depend on microwaves and TV dinners to cover my lack of culinary knowledge.

At the same time, there are so many things that I do depend on. I am dependent on Wells Fargo as the one bank in town to give me access to my money. I am dependent on Fairway Market as the one grocery store in town to give me milk and produce. And I rely on the power company to keep me warm at night.

How can one truly be independent, then? I think we live in a culture that tells us to be DEpendent. Our culture tells us through mass media that we don't have the time or the energy to be self-sufficient and thus need to depend on things like fast food restaurants, weight loss pills, dating web sites, prescription smoking cessation drugs, and, the mark of the beast, iPhones. In this culture, are any of us as independent as our founding fathers were or as the natives who lived here before them truly were?

I like to think I'm getting there.

I've taken my physical fitness into my own hands, and I think that makes me a little more independent than I used to be. I go to the gym (another one of those human constructions that makes us less of what we really are) and spend time on the machines or in a class not because I need to-- because I'd surely survive without it, i've been doing just that for 25 years -- but because I choose to. I am healthy not because of weight watchers or Hydroxycut or Nutrisystem or bulimia, but because of my own efforts. My diet enters into this as well. I've taken the art of cooking into my own hands and learned how to cook in the last year-- and in doing so am more independent.

I no longer have a vehicle to drive. This makes me no longer dependent on an automobile to get me from A to B. This makes me more independent. As I walk the mile to and from work each day, I get there not by the efforts of a Ford factory's staff, but by the efforts of my increasingly-more-toned thighs and calves.

Stimee told me over the phone what was wrong with his car and how to fix it. I, standing outside in the rain over his hood with some wrenches, have been the picture of independence. Do i NEED this vehicle? No, I don't need it, I don't depend on it, I can function without it, but it makes life a little easier. Do i NEED to call someone to take care of it for me? No, because I'm learning now how to do it for myself.

On Sunday, I was the opposite of independent. I needed the help of thirteen individuals between Sunday and Monday to help me with things that i saw as essential. Today, Wednesday, I think I'm doing a little better. I just feel that it's difficult to really know what it means to be truly independent; and I also feel that it's not necessarily a bad thing to depend.

Days One and Two: Miss Independent...?

It seems that for the duration of my life I've always had someone to depend on for all my basic needs. Growing up, of course, it was my parents and big brother. In college, even when I was living alone in an apartment downtown, I wasn't paying for it. When I moved to Alaska, I found the first controlling handyman I could be codependent with and attached myself to him. Since then, though I was single for a while, I always had someone who wanted to take care of everything for me. There are certain things I never learned to do for myself just because I never needed to, and because the people who did take care of those things for me never took an interest in teaching me.

Now that I'm in a relationship that's freeing and full of all the things that the last one lacked-- respect being the most noticeable-- I'm learning to do things on my own. It's partly because I'm being taught certain things, and it's partly because I'm really interested in learning them and teaching myself.

Now, however, with the advent of my boyfriend Stimee's vacation for 5 weeks to South America, I'm seeing that, although I am not AS dependent on him as I have been on past boyfriends, fiancees, and clingy exes, I have realized in the past two days that I need to grow up and become the independent woman I always pretended to be.

The area in which my lack of expertise became painfully evident during these incredibly long two days is that of automotive maintenance.

After dropping Stimee off at the airport, Bill and I set off to do some shopping in Whitehorse. For non-Skagwegians, Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon and is the closest road-accessible city to Skagway. It's the closest place to drive to to go to the dentist, buy CDs, get any variety in grocery shopping, have a Big Mac and go see a movie. The drive is, in my experience, usually about two hours. The first part of the drive climbs to the White Pass summit, in between US and Canada customs.

On the way back from Whitehorse, Bill noticed a gauge on my dash that I'd never even looked at before. "Is your thermostat broken?" he asked. I looked. It took a minute to even have an idea of what he was talking about, but when I saw it, and understood what "H" and "C" stood for, I wondered. It was all the way to the end of the red section in the "H" side of the gauge, and climbing swiftly past it.

Using a phrase that, in the next 48 hours would be repeated innumerable times, I said, "I don't know anything about cars."

The engine was, indeed, overheating. When it started to make a clanking noise that immediately made me think of Brian Regan's comedy routine, Bill suggested we pull over. When we did, and popped the hood, the engine was smoking and smelled like rubber. Bill -- whose presence was so much appreciated as he knows about cars and I don't -- determined that I had no coolant in the tank. "Oh!" I exclaimed in a tone that said "EUREKA!" "My dad stocked up my trunk before I left New York. I'm sure there's coolant in there."

I found myself sorting through many containers of unfamiliar fluids. Four of them were marked "Motor Oil." One was "Power steering fluid." At this point I felt like a foreigner in a strange country, surveying the shelves of a pharmacy whose bottles are labeled in an unfamiliar language. There was wiper fluid, brake fluid, and a can of Progresso soup, but, as was to be expected, there was no coolant.

I did, however, have a few bottles of water. Bill dumped the contents in the tank and we got the car going again. This time, the meter dropped to about midway between "H" and "C," and the engine noise stopped. At least, it stopped for a little while.

After going through Canada customs, the noise started again. As we climbed to the summit, after which the road would simply wind downhill back into Skagway, the noises intensified. Finally, as I pressed the gas pedal to the floor trying to get it going, the speedometer dropped sadly. 30... 20... 10... 5... and.... stopped. Immediately the car began rolling backward down the hill. I hastily put it in park and sighed.

There were a lot of details at this point as Bill pondered the meaning of my car's ("death wagon," or "death machine," as he called it) demise, that I just dont' remember because, again, it might as well have been a foreign language. One of those details involved the lack of coolant, and another involved the lack of good oil. We ended up getting a ride back into town with a couple who had just moved to Whitehorse. Once back in town, the phone calls started.

My first instinct was to call Doug and Lindsay, which I did multiple times, but they weren't answering their phones. Through them, i thought, I could get in touch with Paul, whose automotive expertise would surely be able to solve whatever was wrong with my car. I called Dirk, who had no ideas. I called Logan, who helped me come up with the solution to call Cody. I called Cody, who said "where are you now? home? I'll be there in 10 minutes." The thought that always comes to mind whenever the Lewises help me out again passed through my consciousness: "Thank God for the Mormons."

Cody and I ascended the summit in his truck. It had been snowing earlier, lightly, and now was snowing a little heavier. Of all the thoughts running through my mind, prominently featuring was the voice of pessimism with all the whatifs that Shel Silverstein wrote about. But the car was still there, the flashers were still on, and everything was intact.

Cody did a bunch of things to try and get it started, explaining them all to me as he did so (for which i was grateful), but the car wouldn't start. The engine just didn't want to turn over. So we decided to, at the very least, pull the car into the next turnoff. Seems pretty simple, right? Of course it seems that way. But was it? Of course not.

In a turn of events that made me want to laugh and cry all at once, because it was so tragic it was hilarious, at least in retrospect, we did get the car into the turnoff. That entailed Cody's truck getting stuck in the turnout because it hadn't been plowed, shoveling the tires out, putting chains on them, backing it out little by little and shoveling the tires in between, enlisting the help of a passing Skagwegian in physically pushing the car as far as we could between the three of us, and finally taking off.

The next day, yesterday, was Hell. I am incredibly grateful that I live where i live, where small town is a positive thing, and where community is more than just a bunch of people sharing the space. It was a team effort that included help from Stimee (calling everyone to coordinate from the Seattle airport), Doug (attempting to get a hold of Paul), Lindsay (letting me know what went on when they heard from Paul), Blake (called by Stimee because he has access to a trailer), and, of course, Paul himself. Blake and Paul went up and got the car down for me. It was incredible of them to do it, and I cannot express how much of a weight was lifted from my shoulders when I saw the trailer and car come down the alleyway.

But the story doesn't end there. That would be too Disney. No, there's always more, because when they say "the shit hits the fan" they don't just mean one little piece from the litterbox. They mean big diapers full of diarrhea splattering everywhere.

Since Stimee is now out of town, he's letting me use his car. So I drove into town to get a case of beer and a bottle of Pendleton's as a thank you to Paul. After getting said alcohol from the liquor store, I got into Stimee's car only to find that it wouldn't start. "You have GOT to be kidding me!" I said aloud. Earlier, when I had driven by the Eagles, I'd seen the Liarsville truck there and so knew that Dirk and Doug would be there. I went to the Eagles to enlist their help, but Dirk didn't have any jumper cables. Don did, though, and he drove me down to the store to jump Stimee's car. It took a few tries, but we got it started.

"So what now?" I asked. "I leave it running for a while?"

Don just laughed. "What I would do," he said, "is do everything you need to do, leave the car running, and then park it at home. Because it might start, and it might not."

With that in mind, I stopped at the house to get my cell phone and then pressed on to Liarsville to drop the gifts off with Paul. Paul affirmed that Stimee's car does indeed have issues with the battery, and that if I needed any help to let him know. (He really is a saint. I think I'll start calling him Saint Paul.) When i went back out, the car was no longer running, but I got it started again.

Later on, I went to broadway video to get a new phone chjarger. Outside the store, of course, the car wouldn't start again. Leona bailed me out this time, explaining as she did the issues that she saw with the battery. The lights on the dash flashed the entire way home. After I parked, just for giggles, I tried to start it again. Obviously it didn't.

It'll all be OK though, I've realized. There's nothing wrong with walking a mile to and from work. In fact, on a day like today, it's preferable over driving. But the point that has become incredibly clear to me in these trials is that I am far from independent and I want nothing more than to be able to do all these things for myself, or at the very least, to be able to tell people what's wrong with my car. So I'm working on it.

If, as I said before, this was a team effort, Stimee was the coach. Couldn't actually participate, but directed the efforts of those who could. I'm going to go with a volleyball analogy because it's what I'm most familiar with. In that metaphor, I'm the helpless freshman in her first year playing who somehow is a starter but has no idea how to keep it together. Bill would be the grudging friend who I dragged with me into things, but who at least has a basic knowledge of the sport. Leona and Don would be the hitters who come in to cover things that got messed up and fix what went wrong with the powerful spikes to the opponent. And Blake and Paul, my new heroes, would be the all-around MVPs, captains of the team, the ones who can serve the ball better than anyone else, hit the ball better than anyone else, block the opponents more than anyone else, and, more than anything else, step in and make things work when no one else can.