Yesterday:
Dude. I just got hit by a mack truck called Alaska.
It’s none of the things you might visualize. I wasn’t even crossing the street.
I crossed the Tongass Narrows on a 1.25 minute ferry ride, readjusting my things in my arms and dropping them, repeatedly, as the ferry tugged over. I burnt my fingers on the griddle at Amanda’s this morning. I thought I could wipe out the bacon grease with paper towels while it was still piping hot. Whoops. The finger pad of my middle finger, King Salmon, was numb and bashed from hinging the weight of my silver suitcase on it as I ran down the ramp. I almost didn’t make it onto the 7:45 ferry which was the latest one I could take: if I had, I’d be left in Ketchikan walking around looking like I know what’s happening. I never knew what was happening, but wearing a bright color makes you know things.
Wired and keyed up on goodbye, it wouldn’t be real until I was on that darn ferry. No wonder I nearly missed it.
I speed-clunked down the ferry ramp like a metal bucket down the stairs, haphazardly transporting two suitcases complete with smoked salmon, some frozen halibut I couldn’t part with for Pete’s sake, my clothes, hairdryer and my stupid moshi pillow that I love and renders me basic, my teal North Face and backpack, crossbody purse falling off and middle finger in pain from carrying the silver suitcase instead of rolling it. I’m traveling alone but what I’m really doing is MOVING SO DON’T JUDGE ME. YOU PACK YOUR LIFE INTO SMALL MOVING THINGS ON WHEELS.
I can’t miss this ferry. I want to miss this ferry.
I recognized so many people at the airport: Bryce’s girlfriend, Sarah’s friend with the seeing-eye dog, Ann Saxman. Just standing in security, I still felt more known in this town than I’ve felt in any airport security line and I’m not even on the island anymore.
– – – – – – –
At the Ketchikan Airport: I packed Bentonite Clay in my bag. It’s a powder that you use to make face masks. Unless the plane needs to exfoliate, I don’t think it can cause a threat or be useful. But my silver carry-on got searched and it was removed. It didn’t register to me as I packed this suitcase LAST WEEK that powders are all sorts of threatening. I wonder how friendly a larger airport would have been about finding a case of bentonite clay in a plastic bag. She was professional, courteous.
She said: “We can see if you have time to run it downstairs and check it, or you can abandon it.”
That’s pretty dramatic for a face mask clay, lady.
I said: “Oh really, a powder?” I’m an idiot.
“Yes but let me double check with my supervisor first.”
She returns: “Yes I’m sorry. She says it’s not allowable on board. Do you want to try to run downstairs and check it?”
I waved my arm, dismissive, detached: “You can throw it away.”
THANKS AIRPORT SECURITY FOR CALLING IT WHAT IT IS.
I AM ABANDONING THIS ISLAND
I AM ABANDONING MY FRIENDS, MY SWEET LOVES TO WHOM I’VE GROWN SO CLOSE
MY SWEET DOCK REPS IN THE GREEN JACKETS
THE DUMB CRUISE SHIPS
THE RAINFOREST
MY WONDERFUL LIFE
BLECHCHCHHHHHHHHHHHH SOUL TEARSSSSSS BLUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I’m in Sea-Tac. I pressed play on two youtube videos simultaneously on how to unclog your ear. I don’t want to think about what I’ve just left.
Immediately, when I walked off the plane into this airport I’ve traveled through dozens of times, I’m met with bustling airporters, people of import who need their latte and need their wifi and need their gate, boom boom boom. This is a normal city. This is how it goes. Back to how most of the world lives. In that instant, Ketchikan retreated from me like a magic mist. It is as distant as it will be until I return. Goodbye Ketchikan.
My sweater still smells like bacon. My fingers still hurt a little. I unclogged my ear.
– – – – – – – –
Now I am in Atlanta. I am here. It is queer.
I slept all morning because A: exhaustion B: jetlag C: bighairdontcare.
I simultaneously need to do 17 things and I am up for only sitting and recording my farewell, the days that led up, the conversations, embraces and goodbyes. There is so much to write about and remember and yet I don’t have time to get into it right now and also do the things I need to do here. I need to wash my hair. I need to see my friends, their babies, drink Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with Marguerite, have lunch with my dad, Dinner with Gretchen, snuggle with Carlton, visit with Jack, wash my hair (did I mention?), unpack these amazon prime boxes and return half of them, and be present?
Pack for the next 2 years in a foreign country, get some rest, do Spanish on the Duolingo app, and say final goodbyes to my friends, see my family, and also, sadly, sit with the fact that this house is a fraction of what it was without Nana.
It’s going to be a blur but in the midst of it, I’m still holding onto the image of the mountains and the mist. I still want them to be mine.
I want to remember how it all felt: the very nice man from Eagle River who sat next to me on the plane, visiting his daughter in Atlanta, eating hummus at my parents like I was meeting Trader Joe’s for the first time, reembracing my fat confused cat Carlton and holding him up my bosom, to his chagrin, seeing my Gretchen and delicately but not without some fatigue embracing the quiet that we are adults now. We have broken away and built our own lives and they don’t look as similar or as connected as maybe we thought. I met her dog Ruby, who sat in the backseat. She is a sweet girl, very eager, very big.
And I need to remember my last day in Ketchikan, Sunday. I need to write it all down. I need to remember the smell of the stories so the words will follow and capture it. I need to feel the moisture of the air and feel the emotion of ladies night, the daughter deep in my gut, as we went through tours of our Love Museums. And I don’t want to be insensitive to my loves here, by holing up in my room to record it all. I want to be with them, too.
And I need to wash my hair.