White Christmas

I thought my night in three different airports toward Alaska would help me to rewind and write my Idaho better. But my night starts with a delay, probably cutting my tales. Of course it does, the minute I hold my pen, I am called to board.
I then spend the night in Seattle airport, so memorable, so heavy, so light since I cut the link with the past after Vancouver Island, after Bellevue. I am not haunted anymore, Seattle is a travel in time that I don’t want to live anymore. I want to move forward and I fall asleep on the airport uncomfortable sits.
I bend my trip, head to the North Pole, reverse my way, pulled by frozen Alaskan snow. I land and it is still dark at 10 am. In front of this black morning, I finally realize I am about to spend ten days in the dark. I was only thinking about the fact I was visiting Hannah, never about being north of the world in winter time.

Thus, I land where I already landed four months ago. In the exact same airport, totally different though. Unspoken. And it brings me back to my circle stories, the one I understood during my Mormon stay.
We all go round in circles but not in the same spot. Let’s pretend you have a pencil at the end of your circling thoughts, even if the drawing keeps the same shape, it slightly moves, even from one inch, but it moves! A bit like a mandala machine (even though I don’t entirely rely on that metaphor, since mandala circles end up circling as well!). Of course, your two consecutive circles look the same and make you feel like you literately circled. But if you step back, if you look after five minutes, five months, five years, you can tell the circles have the same circumference – or not, as a matter of fact – round for sure, but they have drifted a bit, they have moved and you have changed a bit. Your mind has evolved, it doesn’t go around the same axle, because you are not the exact same axle yourself, you are not the same circle. At the end, you have transformed.
Thus, my circle has drifted since August, since October and I feel different. Completely different. Capable. Courageous and strong.

I look at the sun rise, or more exactly the shy day rise, so slow, so late, in Anchorage. Winter solstice behind, days are getting longer on the North Hemisphere and yet, going further North, mine are getting shorter. And I get lost in the clouds. I gaze at mountains in my plane window, so white I mix them with cotton.

Landed in Fairbanks, the horizon is red and always low on one side, like a grey twilight on the other side. I meet the actual winter Alaskan colors by -28° C, à -20°F, I trip on the real snow coat. A perfect time to hibernate. A perfect season to nap. For supper, Agnes, Hannah’s mum, shares her first Catholic blessing like she wanted to bring me back on the right side of Christianity.
And it is already Christmas, we drive to Healy. I am going to my friend that I have missed so much, adopt another family to replace my missing one, so far, so close… Dawn colors linger for endless minutes as I recognize the road ridden so many times. I feel at home… Not only because I recognize the scenery but because I am visiting someone and not somewhere. Even if when the reddish mountains (or did I invent that part?) rise in the background, I am completely stunned. Like anytime I will get a glimpse of the Pyrenees.
Christmas away from everyone is easier. Maybe because I am getting closer, I will meet everybody soon enough. Then, I cherish my own Christmas fantasy, helped by Alaskan beautiful frosted winter.

Alaska gets such a peculiar light during this dark season. The sky is so different, white, blue and cold, a sky that never makes an actual day light. It always lingers somewhere, on the other side of the world. Alaska still sparkle incredibly magic and beautiful through my heart. Even if daily life is awfully down to earth… Alaskan daily life means frozen nose hair. Alaskan daily life means a polar expedition just to go to the outhouse. Alaskan daily life means frozen water in pipes making any chore an adventure.
Yet, my daily life is on holidays, playing with llamas walk in the snow, laughing with Charlie on the sled. Yet, my daily life is on holidays, lost in a winy and cheerful fog. It gets dark at 4.30 p.m, rushing time of the first wine glass, opening our heart and secrets, finishing in the freezing cold but warm ass llamas barn straw.

And 2020 knocks in our hearts, yet I still feel like I am not ready for this new year. There is something so important about to happen, and I am not prepared enough. My heart gets completely entangled…
I am deeply afraid of what I want. Thus, despite my nice speeches, I am still scared? Yes, I am frightened to bring the past with me in 2020, despite everything, despite my own knowledge… And if do that, I am screwed, I am good for another year. I know that I am healed though. I can feel it in my cells. I therefore now have to know what I really want, but I don’t know how to do that anymore. For weeks, for months, needs were priority, I was blown by fate winds since my desires were not strong enough to rise. Today, I have plenty of ideas and I don’t know which one I should choose.
Feverish and uncertain, I can tell the moment matters, but I can’t find my way to my instinct, torn by opposite desires, torn in between reason and love. I feel like, unable to make one decision, I can’t settle on anything else. I am then on the edge of the cliff, I can’t jump and 2020 ocean jumps to me instead, taking my breath away… I am not paralyzed, a part of me cannot move though… Utah ? Arizona ? Colorado ? I have no idea, my heart is indecisive and doesn’t know what I want… But I have learnt, I have grown, and my confident soul draws thousand of opportunities, sparkling in my eyes and offering new paths.

Since I leave Hannah behind in the end, with winter for only companion, not knowing when nor where our paths shall cross again… We know our twin souls will pull us back together someday though. Soon.