E-mails from the Dead- A good reminder to CTFO

We all get spam in our e-mail, it’s unavoidable. Whether it’s Abu Kareem Muhammad telling you that the government of Egypt has found an error in their bookkeeping and if you just e-mail him your full name, social security number, mother’s maiden name and that oh so important bank account number, they will be happy to place 10 MILLION US dollars in your account. There’s also the “Enl@rge your P@ckage” or “FREE V$AGRA for YOU” e-mails telling you all your wildest dreams will come true once you click this link to buy wonder pills. Last but not least are the e-mails you get from your actual friends telling you they are stuck in Paris because someone robbed them at knife-point, stole their money, passport and return airline ticket. They need YOUR help to get home, so hurry up and provide your bank account number so they can get money wired to their account. Your first reaction is “Holy crap! I need to help them!” But then you start wondering why they said, “Dear Field” instead of “Dear Frances” (because you thought you were on a first name basis with your mother.) It also gets you wondering how you saw your friend yesterday at Foodland, and in less than 24 hours, they have somehow managed to fly to Paris and get mugged at knifepoint. On a side note- this did recently happen to my friends Arlo and Oksana on a beach in Zanzibar. A man jumped out of the jungle and attempted to rob them at machete-point. At rusty machete point. Thank goodness my friend Oksana has lungs on her like a crazed Banshee because her shrieking alone sent the man running back into the jungle afraid of what she might do next. To read their story, go here: Zanzibar is Dangerous.

At any rate, we expect these spam e-mails and we all know what to do- TRASH/DELETE. We get them from strangers and we get them from our friends whose e-mails have been compromised. But who we don’t expect to get them from are our friends who are dead.

My friend Wendy has been dead over a year now and you can imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning and found an e-mail from her waiting in my inbox. The title was something like, “Whatz up!?” which is something Wendy would have said. She was one of those “texters” who used the number 2 instead of writing too or to. She added z’s to words instead of apostrophe “s” and she did the acronyms “LOL”, “BRB”, “TMI”, “TTYL” and the dreaded, “:)” But Wendy usually did the one with the tongue hanging out. ":-P" If you’ve ever texted me, you know I never use them and they drive me absolutely crazy.

I looked at the e-mail sitting in my inbox and eventually found myself opening it. In the e-mail, she told me how she recently tried this cool new product and wanted me to try it too- just click the link. Once again, this is something Wendy would have sent me an e-mail about. I told myself it was a hoax because if it really were Wendy, she would have signed the e-mail “Ydnew” which is what I called her and she would have addressed me as “Secnarf.” Ha! It’s a fake! And then reality set in and I thought to myself, of course it’s a fake. Wendy died, she is gone and wherever she is, I doubt she has a connection to the internet.

Then I got pissed.

I got even more pissed when it happened a few weeks later, and then every week after that. Eventually, my anger started to diminish because I realized that Wendy took great pride in annoying me. She was a pro at it and knew exactly what it took to get under my skin. When I was president of the recycling club, she would throw trash out the window of her car as she drove by me- and smile at me. She made fun of me while I ate my Red Hot Blues and Reed’s Organic Ginger Beer as she mowed down on Funyuns and Pepsi. She used phrases that made me grit my teeth. She also made fun of me in school when I annoyingly had answer to everything and always had my work done. We were friends, good friends, but we were very opposite and she annoyed the living hell out of me most the time. I didn’t realize it until after she died that her constant jabbing of me was her way of telling me to lighten up and to stop being so damn serious all the time.

I got an e-mail again from her this morning and it brought a big smile to my face. Since Wendy knew she wasn’t going to make it, I like to imagine her coercing one of the nurses at the hospital to send me annoying e-mails every few weeks just to piss me off and to remind me that life is too short and not to take things too seriously.

Ballet with a side of Running

I had an awesome day today. The day started off quite rainy and miserable and I was dreading my scheduled six mile run in the rain, but I knew it had to be done.

Before my run, it was ballet class for Lena. It was “parent visit day” which meant I got to watch Lena strut her stuff and show off what she’s learned. Throughout class, Lena was a chatterbox and had to comment about everything. I nearly died when the early 20-something year old teacher told the students they can roll onto their backs, but she was just going to go part way down. Lena loudly exclaimed in front of the whole class and their parents, “That’s because you’re old and you’ll hurt yourself.” I wanted to crawl under the chair I was sitting on.

With as chatty as she is, she obviously has been paying attention. This is her 2nd year in ballet and I am so impressed by the grace and form she possesses while dancing. When it came time for the class to demonstrate five positions, I was amazed at her concentration. I also learned that three students in her class will be chosen to be the “baby mice” in the Nutcracker this December. I asked Lena if she wanted to be one and she said, “I was a mouse last year for Halloween, so nah, not really.”

After ballet we came home, made some grilled cheese sandwiches and then I headed out for my run with an old Haines compadre Kelly. Kelly took over the fair after I left and did an excellent job managing it. She and her husband recently left Haines and moved to Juneau. (We are starting a trend where ex fair directors take exile in Juneau after running the fair.) Kelly is a runner, and I mean, she is a RUNNER. She has run the Golden Circle (Skagway to Haines) twice. That’s 360 miles, and she ran it in 12 days at 30-40 miles a day. She’s also participated in 50 mile runs, countless marathons and she was supposed to run a 100 miler last week, but couldn’t get the time off work. I was fully prepared for her to kick my sorry ass.

Kelly suggested we run the Herbert Glacier trail which I was very excited about for two reasons. One, I’ve never been on the trail and two, I’ve only been doing road running and I was very eager to get out on some soft ground and away from traffic. The run to the base of the glacier is about 4.5 miles. I only needed to run six, but having never been to the base of the glacier, Kelly suggested we push on, and we did. We walked some, but mostly we ran and it felt so good! The rain stopped and the sun came out creating spectacular beams of sunlight creeping through the mossy forest. Kelly was a great running partner. We talked about the fair, living in Haines, running, and about life in general. Overall, we put in over 8 miles and I am happy to report, it didn’t kill me and I don’t hurt. I can’t wait to go running with Kelly again!

The day ended with a birthday party for my friend Karl at Bullwinkle’s. I gorged on taco pizza and popcorn and watched the girls shoot animals on a video game. For a ballerina, Lena sure knows how to take down a moose.

Forward Momentum

It’s been raining a lot in Juneau and I’m approaching what has typically been a crappy time of year for me given my past two falls. I’ve always had mixed feelings about fall in Alaska because it’s cold, wet, windy and getting darker by the second. People start to develop symptoms of SAD and unless they are spending time under a sunlamp or remember to take their daily dose of Vitamin D, the general mood is fairly gloomy and people sit around and bitch about the fact that we really didn’t have much of a summer. On the upside, people are running around like squirrels getting ready for winter be it hunting deer, getting wood or packing the last bits of summer into canning jars.

Yesterday was the first big storm of the season. Trees were falling, buildings were shaking and as my office mate next to me said he thought he was getting seasick from our building swaying, I couldn’t help but think of the storms I’ve been through on my father’s boat the Towego. The Towego is a very seaworthy boat with a broad bow made of steel that hits waves head on with a thud. I remember a particular drive to Cape Fox through Dixon Entrance where I was standing in the wheel house with my dad watching each approaching wave. The muscles in my body would flex as if I were the one going up against the wave. As the wave hit the bow, I would thrust my body forward, pushing against the dash as if my weight would somehow make a difference in slicing through the wave. The Towego didn’t need my psychological willpower. When faced with head on waves, she slammed into them coolly and calmly taking each one head on. Sometimes she shuddered under the pressure and ever so slightly paused, but she always managed to keep moving forward. My dad’s boat, the Trish was a seaworthy boat too. My dad spent late and cold nights at Sunny Point Cannery during the winter months building his dream with his own two hands. It was after a halibut derby opening that dad was headed down Clarence Straits, bucking up against head on waves when a rogue wave came out of nowhere and engulfed the stern. Within seconds the boat rolled and started to sink. Because I have the most kick ass father in the world who swam around like a superhero kicking out windows under water with his bare feet and diving through jungles of tangled ropes, everyone got off the boat alive. But, the boat was never recovered and sits at the bottom of Clarence Straits to this day.

I also couldn’t help but think that I’ve been through my fair share of personal storms over the past two years. Throughout my storms, I’ve tried to channel the strength of the Towego, facing each storm head on and crashing through it. I have to admit, I got pretty good at it. I’ve shuddered a few times, but each time, I’ve managed to keep pushing forward. For the most part, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing because like the Towego, I realize the only possible way to make it anywhere is to keep moving forward.

A few weeks ago, things changed. I had been focusing so hard and long on auto pilot crashing through the storm that when the storm finally broke, I got wrapped up in the calmness of it and let my guard down. The forecast was amazing and it was supposed to hold without an end date in sight. I sat out on the back deck carelessly with no one at the wheel soaking in much needed sunshine after way too much rain. The sun was intoxicating and I was so thankful it was finally shining on me. I was enjoying it so much that I somehow missed the gray clouds creeping overhead, the ripples starting to dance across the glassy water or the clanging of the rigging against the mast. I realize now, I chose to ignore it. I was too afraid to head into another storm and I truly hoped it would go away and not ruin my time in the sun. But the gray clouds didn’t go away and before I knew it, a rogue came out of nowhere and took me out. And it really took me out hard, nearly sinking every ounce of spirit I have left in me. For the first time in two years, I actually felt like I couldn’t move forward; and worse yet, I didn’t care.

As a result, I haven’t felt much like doing anything lately; and running was definitely low on my priority list. I’ve had a wicked cold that’s been lingering and I had a freak run-in with the pavement in the Costco parking lot due to a strange incident which has left my entire left side throbbing. I finally got off my sorry butt and went running in the rain and wind last night. Immediately, I wanted to turn back and crawl in bed to hide under my covers. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” The wind was blowing hard pressing up against me trying to hold me back. Within a mile I had convinced myself to turn around. I admit that I don’t have proper running gear that protects me from the elements, so I was drenched from the rain and chilled down to the bone which didn’t help the situation. I started to wrestle with my mind, “Turn around. Go back. This is ridiculous. Just what the hell are you trying to prove?” Then a song came on my iPod and my mood changed. The song is Billy Joel’s “Downeaster Alexa.” It’s a song I’ve always found empowering because it reminds me of the strength of my father. He came to Alaska in the mid 60s wanting nothing more than to be a fisherman and having nothing more than his ranch boy dreams. He worked his way up to building his dream boat and a few years later, he watched it sink before his eyes. He was in his mid 40s with a wife and a kid still in elementary school and he had lost his entire livelihood- with no insurance to back him up. Once again, he had to start over from scratch. He moved forward and I needed to as well. I reached the Douglas Bridge and the wind was blowing so hard I had to cover my mouth with my hands to stop the wind from stealing my breath. I remember as a kid hiding behind my mom when it was windy so that the wind couldn’t take my breath away, but my mom wasn’t there to shield me on the bridge. It was just me and I trudged on. People were looking at the crazy girl on the bridge running with her hands cupped over her mouth, practically crawling so that the wind didn’t knock her over. I watched the whitecaps crash below me while I pushed across the bridge and somehow, I made it.

I admit to being tired of maneuvering through storms and I long for sunshine and warmth on my skin. It will come, but in order for it to, I just need to keep moving forward.