When I first arrived at McMurdo I felt a twinge of disappointment that I would not be traveling on to the South Pole. I missed the small population, the alienation and the harsh environment that comes with living at 90 degrees south; however, since spending time at this new location, I have become smitten.
The mountains were the first to win me over. Standing over 13,000 feet tall at their highest point, the Royal Society Mountains (part of the Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range), felt like home. They quieted my reserve with their ancient stoicism and timeless beauty. The magnificence of this land is inspiring. The same magic that surrounded the Pole is here and it hangs in the air. With every breathtaking view, and cold, smoky exhalation that eventually follows, I feel an overwhelming sense of belonging. This land speaks to me. Contrary to most people's desire for meaning and purpose in their lives, I feel comfort in the belief that I am nothing more than beautiful chaos--part of a natural order that I will never pretend to understand.
I was raised up believing I was some how unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
(Fleet Foxes--Helplessness Blues)
On a planet so beautiful and so diverse, I coexist with a plethora of life that is no less important or special than my own. I may feel invincible at times and feel that the laws of nature do not effect me, but I am running a race that can not be won. The mountains, in all their beauty and majesty, will be here long after I am gone. To understand my insignificance is humbling, but it also makes life more precious, more beautiful. I feel like I have dodged a bullet, escaped a life that I was not meant to live and now I am free to be who I want, do want I want, go where I want with the time allotted to me.
I am playing all my cards now, while I can, and I am not banking on the ability to finish unfulfilled dreams in an afterlife. I will live my brief, fast-burning life to the fullest--taking in every sight and experience I can until I burn out and drop to the earth. Annie Dillard said it best in Living Like Weasles (my favorite of her essays.)
We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience--even of silence--by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel doesn't "attack" anything; a weasel lives as he's meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity...I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you...
Hey Jenna, Great Blog! You manage to put into words what most of us will never experience. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHey I'm testing out this comment thing! I'm going to send you mail. Eventually.
ReplyDeleteThe picture out on the sea ice is one of the best I've seen this season.
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