alaska, 2010

Stampede Trail where Jim Gallien dropped off McCandless

Cassin, Sultana, Tuya - beautiful names for beautiful dogs

i feel, oddly enough, happy. as though this is happiness i do not deserve. as though it will be snatched from my hands. but im happy, and it is all that matters for now.

and an update:

For the past two weeks I've been working in the inner city with African American kids. The surroundings are miserable, broken down, and often, heartbreaking, but the kids show such resilience; I have yet to hear one of them complain. I love each and every one of them and I want everything for them.
I am smitten with wanderlust, I am impatient, and consequently I loathe commitment. But the places I've been and the organizations I've worked with have always left a mark and I dream of the day I'll return. So it is with this program. I could never stay committed to working here for more than a year and yet I know years from now, the indelible imprint that it will have left, will leave me yearning for a chance to return.

I've been reading lately. I am now reading Anna Karenina.

and finally, i think i mentioned earlier, how in a moment of discomfort and irritation, i chopped off my hair without precision or care - and it looks choppy and awful. its short and id take back that awfully impetuous decision any day. what to do?

i cannot tell you what it feels to sleep in ones own bed. to eat homemade food. to watch tintin and to read books that have nothing whatsoever to do with the human body.
to feel what the living feel.

for it has been five months. and i am now living again.

i am almost certain i know what i want but i believe in fate - that certain things, no matter how hard we try to manipulate them, occur in their own set way, that they proceed according to their own plan. so i have my plans of course, but i don't know if they will come to fruition.

i guess what i'm saying is that i'm taking each day as it comes and making plans only so far into the future because what i want and what i get are not always the same.