Ice, White & Blue

Redhead Amok in Antarctica

Oh, And Since Then...

The day I learned of the birth of my niece I was also informed that my mother had lung cancer.

The next day Brad had to get on a bus and leave for Christchurch and then Oz, and I had to get myself ready to go home and figure out what the hell to do with Ruby. I was allowed one more week in New Zealand, and I immediately fled from where I'd heard the news in Invercargill (southern-most NZ city) to the comfort of friends (Rochelle, and then Pav) on the West Coast. I soaked in as much of the areas between as I could as a way of fortifying myself with memories of extravagantly beautiful scenery, of arming myself with the possibilities of joy when sorrow seemed such an inescapable future.

I have been home since then taking care of her. No post-surgery chemo or radiation necessary, just recovery of strength and stamina. We were lucky. One grapefruit-sized tumour and no metastases. Yes, she smoked for many years, but she quit in 1972. Still, it fucked her lung.

She's fine now. Down one lung, but doing fine. Gaining weight, and well able to care for herself. We await her return to the pool, so we can see if she swims lopsided now. No, really, I'm curious about that.

I have also been getting to know my infant niece, Ave, and trying not to carry her like my cat, or call her by my cat's name. I don't have any experience with infants, never having been interested in any up to this point. The day I get her to purr is the day I'll have figured her out. By then she'll be headed to preschool, I'm sure.

posted by: coldwish at 19:46 | link | comments (2) |
between 2008

Of Ice and Then

I had a shit season this year, from beginning to end.

There were a few mitigating graces: Brad, the marvellous day sleeper roommate who I adore for his unflappable, sarcastic honesty; Karl and Mark, my clever, foul-mouthed, supportive, irreverent weekly Hearts opponents who kicked my ass all season except once on my birthday and I KNOW that was a birthday gift; Jesse, my AM Pits partner who made a challenging week outside funner than it had a right to be; meals with the hilariously dirty-minded and truthful Marisa (and Eric who gleefully put up with us); the divinely intelligent calm of meals with Marty and Dean; Thomas's loan of hockey skates and directions to the "skating rink"; reconnecting with Shana despite our occasional difficulties as roommates last season; the Adelie who came to the Ice Runway; the blizzards; the startled Emperor; the climb up Hogback; getting to know the helo pilots at Marble; seeing Mike on the other end of the Herc hose during a fueling, the clouds and hoarfrost and snow.  There were so many small moments and actions and interactions that floated above the shit of the season, and for all that I'm thankful.

I wouldn't have survived otherwise. I could not develop calluses fast enough, to be anything but rubbed raw by the evidently casual hatefulness of so many daily interactions.

All together the wonderful moments and people were not enough to keep me from a thousand-yard stare of bewilderment and shock in the Galley from my very first week back on Ice, and thinking "Why don't I just quit this shit hole?"

It wasn't the hard work, the bad food, the lack of privacy, the cold weather. It wasn't even the corporate cheapskates who run the place.

It was the people. It was more than just my constant issue with Too Many People.

It hasn't been easy for me since my first season (and I may have been blinded by Ice Love to the worst of that season, or I was just hopeful in my FNG innocence that it was the exception to the rule). I've had to scramble for moments of peace and bliss at McMurdo, between the crowds of people and their very often juvenile, mean behaviour, exacerbated by the corporate stranglehold on the place.

I don't mean to tar everyone with the same brush, but holy crap, there are enough of that ilk to taint the best of times in McMurdo.

When some of them work in the same department, then it's a huge issue. You don't "go home" when you finish work there. They are in your dorm, in your toilet, in the same line for food, one table over in the Galley, in the same knitting group, volunteering for the same activities, on the same few proscribed hiking routes at the same time, in the store, hanging up their coats next to yours, on the next computer over in the computer lab, drinking at the same bar. There is no recovery time from the people who abrade.

You could not pay me enough to return to Fuels at this point in McMurdo. As much as that department was able to offer me in terms of travel and ineffably Antarctic opportunities, we were not a good fit. As much as I truly enjoyed the work and many of my coworkers, I wasn't a great Fuelie. We won't miss each other.

However, you could pay me less to return to the South Pole in a different job.

I applied and was accepted and will be in Cargo/Materials next summer at the South Pole. I'm almost as excited about this as I was to be offered a position on Ice in the first place, 4 seasons ago. I LOVED my 5 week stint there the season before this. Watching the Polies transit through McMurdo to Pole in October was heartbreaking for me, because I wanted to go, too, where I fit better. I watched them go and was bereft, not only for missing them, but for being left behind in a McMurdo season that had already deteriorated to almost unbearable.

I couldn't get away far enough. I heal from people by withdrawing from the constant social pounding, by leaving the scene, by being alone. Though I had my dorm room blessedly and mostly to myself throughout the season, due to my and Brad's opposite work schedule, I still had to go to the Galley to eat, go the the loo to pee and shit. I still had to encounter the same people, and fake civility and sociability. By a certain point in the season, I was faking it with everyone. I felt like every time I left my room I skulked in the nonexistent shadows. Or that I was in drag and performing a sociable, happy, confident Genevieve that was simply not myself.

I bore it though, with gritted teeth and a greater need for the pleasure of working outdoors, preferably completely alone. But I was not in a good place, and was not able to achieve much of the inner poetry that Antarctica engenders in me, a rhythm to which I hum and vibrate when allowed the emotional freedom to do so. This season was heartbreaking for my inability to do much more than glumly notice the beauty around me. I was so trapped in my social misery the heaviness of spiteful, hateful people wore me down. And I couldn't share it, let alone allow myself the vulnerability to expose myself here. I hinted at the misery, I hinted at the beauty, but mostly I remained silent or spoke of less consequential things, like carrots.

But I am going back. But this time to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where I'll have no roommate, there's way fewer people, the food will be better, there's more space to get away from people even if I don't leave the elevated station, and the 360 degrees of curved white ice horizon will remind me just how much space there is in the world to get away in. Even if I don't.

posted by: coldwish at 19:24 | link | comments (1) |
fuels 2007-08