Flat White

McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA

The world stretched out around us, white as far as the eye could see, as the Delta rumbled over the snow road. Drifts fresh from the recent storm were invisible in the flat light, rising up to meet us, bogging down the tires of the mammoth cargo vehicle. Nestled in the middle, every few minutes I would scrape the wide windshield, clear it of our frozen breath, the result of a deficient defrost system. The bumpy ride was a little too raucous for a nap, which certainly would have helped pass the time. An hour and a half later, we arrived at the airfield to find the lead Delta knee deep in snow, and our loader filled with snow thanks to a faulty door latch. Nothing to do but start digging. And call in the bigger shovels. I watched one dozer pushing great tidal waves of snow, leaving behind deep swathes in the snow field. There is just so much snow! It is the stuff of childhood dreams. Granted, we are standing on a permanent ice shelf made of compacted snow, but a couple of stormy days have left great heaps of dry Styrofoam snow. Walking across the vast white, it is nearly impossible to perceive depth, so that I occasionally step off the edge of a ridge before I’ve seen it, struggling to keep my feet firmly planted.

 While we worked at digging out vehicles and sleds, and transferring cargo, the sun sank into the space between the thick cloud cover and the horizon. The apricot sun seemed to be bursting the seams of the sky, the light stretching out from the firey orb to the mountains across the sound. Behind me, Black Island glowed pink in the late afternoon light. The sun would linger just above the horizon, backlighting the Transantarctic Mountains with warm orange light, while the rest of the sky grew duskier. I could pick out the headlights of distant machines working the runway, trying desperately to clear it for the next plane.

In the Dark of Night

McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA

I have spent hours driving a loader. I have moved thousands of pallets, unloaded and loaded at least a hundred planes. I climb into the machines and change gears, turn on lights, adjust heaters, move the forks, without much thought. If you had asked me, I would have told you that I could do it all with my eyes closed. Until last night.

PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL SU

Last night was the first flight that I have worked since landing at McMurdo on Saturday, and the first night flight I have ever worked. The use of night vision goggles by the pilots requires that the airfield be completely dark. I climbed into the loader and fumbled with buttons trying to find the switch to turn off the headlights. Once off, the entire field was dark, the only illumination the faint and dying twilight. Creeping towards the staging ground, I watched for the dark shadows of other vehicles, following the road from memory.  The C-17 is not a tiny plane, and usually easy to spot several hundred miles away, but this time, there was no sign of the plane until the whoosh of it approaching directly overhead. It was eerie and bizarre, a dozen pickup trucks, loaders, and emergency vehicles, invisible in the dark waiting for an equally invisible plane. Upon landing, I could barely pick out the single red light on the top of the plane. I watched the light approach, and even as I knew the plane must be turning directly in front of me, the red light was the only thing punctuating the darkness. Finally the call came over the radio to turn on headlights, and even then the plane was hardly discernible.

PHOTO CREDIT: DANIEL SU

The night grew colder, the wind chill dipping into the negative 50’s, leaving me shivering in the unheated loader, and I struggled through the process of transferring pallet after pallet, moving through the darkness based on a combination of memory, landmarks, and hand signals from ground workers.

The darkness crippled me, took away any skill I thought I had. It was an altogether humbling experience.

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

 CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

Walking through Hagley Park this afternoon, I thought of the last time I was here in February. That afternoon, I had walked through the park with 4 others, the panic rising in my chest, wondering about what we would find in town, whether friends and coworkers were all okay. 


Six months later, the park and surrounds are eerily quiet, snow and puddles have replaced the liquefaction. The center of town is fenced off, silent save a few excavators working where buildings once stood. I am surprised to see a vacant lot where an apartment building once stood that had appeared fairly intact when I left. I am pleased to find my favorite breakfast place has reopened, along with the cheese shop, both places that I had visited the morning of the earthquake. The woman who owns the cheese shop even remembered me when I went in today, glad to know that I too had escaped unscathed. 




 From behind a chain link fence, I can see the Grand Chancellor hotel, still leaning on neighboring buildings. With all the continuing aftershocks, it surprises me that it still stands in the same position. Shredded curtains flap in the breeze, dangling out the broken windows of a nameless office building. Walls are missing, publicly exposing previously private bedrooms and bathrooms.  


Standing on the bridge peering through a fence into the hollow city, I am suddenly very sad. From where I stand, I can see the battered remains of so many familiar places. Around the bend, I can pick out the pieces of the building of the restaurant where I celebrated my 30th birthday. This place is more than just some random city to me. It carries the nostalgia of home, and I do believe a little bit of my heart is here. And I do believe that little bit of my heart is bruised and battered. It is the first time I have felt truly sad about  what has happened here, something other than the fear and anxiety that overwhelmed me in February. 

Travel Weary

FLYING OVER COOK STRAIT, NEW ZEALAND

I am pondering whether chloroform shouldn’t be a requirement on any plane carrying small children.

I love children. But I love them quite a bit less on an airplane in my 32^nd hour of air travel. Three airports, two long flights, 32 hours and one passport stamp into my journey, I find myself crammed into the tiny seat of a budget airline in a row with two adults and an 18 month old toddler who is clearly not very happy to be stuck on a plane. I don’t blame the mother for her child’s impatience and frustration. But I do blame the mother for bringing a toddler onto an airplane where her newfound mobility will be severely restricted, and not bringing a single toy, book, or snack to occupy the little one.

Neither earplugs nor headphones are drowning out the squealing tot, and I find myself leaning out over the aisle to compensate for the lack of shoulder room. I can feel my already sore back and neck clenching up. I peer down the length of the plane to see many of my fellow travelers doing the same thing.

We touched down in Christchurch this afternoon, our arrival narrated by a three-year-old who exclaimed, “there’s snow! it’s snowing!” It was actually raining when we arrived, although clumps of snow still dotted the grass from this week’s snowstorm.  I dug out a puffy coat and a luxuriously soft purple scarf, a handmade gift that I hadn’t expected to use quite so soon.

Returning to Christchurch is an interesting prospect. I left here 6 months ago on a humanitarian airlift after a 6.3 earthquake shook the city. The city had hardly stopped smoking, and certainly hadn’t stopped shaking. I am curious, though a bit anxious, to see the city. This is but a brief stopover on the way to Antarctica, long enough to pick up some cold weather gear and groceries, and get (almost) adjusted to the new time zone, an 18 hour time difference from where I started. 

A little bit of magic

O’HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, CHICAGO, IL

I look up from my book to see that we are flying through clear blue skies, layered between two clouds. For a moment, I feel the extraordinary magic of flying. The magic of course is largely lost, buried somewhere under the digital strip searches and excessive surcharges. But I remember flying as a kid, before cockpits had deadbolts and peepholes, before you had to undress in order to get on a plane. Back then there was some sort of simple wonder in flying above familiar buildings, the aqua blue swimming pools dotting the landscape, and the feeling of swimming through a marshmallow. I remember flying through a thunderstorm on one solo trip in high school. It was amazing and terrifying and wonderful.  Flying on a plane was an adventure, and until I was too cool to care about such things, I loved the part of the flight when the flight attendant would fetch us young’uns and we would march up the aisle to the cockpit to meet the pilots, and ogle the myriad of buttons and flashing lights, and get a set of wings (the plastic pin-on variety, of course).

I love the adventure of new places, and though I’m not always convinced I chose this life, it is the only one I can imagine living, where the possibility of somewhere new, whether Montana or Mongolia, is always looming on the horizon. And flying is part of that, being able to get on a plane, and a movie and a bag of peanuts later, wake up in a different climate in a different time zone. But somewhere in the last decade, the flying part has become less adventure and more headache. I seldom get through an airport without a spike in blood pressure, ever infuriated by the public undressing (I swear this is the only country in the world where you have to remove clothing to get on a plane), the accusatory questions about knitting needles and hard drives, the confiscation of peanut butter because when it’s on bread it’s okay but when it’s in a jar it’s a public safety issue. Long layovers, canceled flights, lost luggage, the disappearance of meals, the hundred dollar bag fees- it’s all such a disappointment.

But then every now and then, with my long legs wedged into the tiny leather seat of an Embraer jet, my shoes and belt and sweater back on, my potentially fatal liquids packed in their tiny bottles, I peer out the window to find just a glimpse of the magic.

I imagine the magic will be short lived. The short hop from Cincinnati to Chicago was just the first hour of the 28 that I will spend on an airplane this week, with another 18 spent in airports waiting between flights. Frequent flyer miles are small consolation for the long trek back to work.  

Changing Seasons in the Blink of an Eye

CINCINNATI, OHIO


The sounds of summer waft in through the windows, open for the first time in months, thanks to a cool front that has finally dropped the temperature below 90, and most importantly, dropped the humidity to lower than a swimming pool. As I listen to the din of locusts and the chirping birds, I sit with a down coat draped over my lap. The sweat pools in the back of my knees as I painstakingly rip out a seam for the fourth time, cursing under my breath. I am replacing a zipper in my work coat, which I will likely be wearing in about 10 days. It is a bizarre thought, to be currently daydreaming about swimming pools but to know that in less than two weeks, my eyelashes will be covered in ice crystals, my breath frozen to a gator pulled up over my face. 


The change of seasons is always abrupt for me, moving from one to another in the span of a flight, without the gradual shifting of light and breeze and temperatures. But somehow, my typical departure in October is a little bit less of a shock to the system. By the time I leave the states, the air is turning crisp, the leaves have hinted at the colors to come, and apples are in season. I've even managed to can apple butter and applesauce before going, in seasons past. That of course, makes it extra torturous to leave- fall is my favorite season, and largely absent from my life for far too many years now. But at least moving from fall to winter seems natural. The sweltering heat of August to the icey dark of Antarctica just waking up from her winter, is a whole other story. There is of course, absolutely no way to prepare myself for the sudden temperature drop. At some point in the journey south, I will trade my sandals for sneakers, and ultimately for big ol' boots. Tank tops will give way to long sleeves, and the tan of my summer skin will fade into pale, pasty white. Hot salty skin will be but a memory buried under half a dozen layers of clothing. 

Furniture and Icebreakers, or the lackthereof

CINCINNATI, OH

It turns out you should not wait 5 years to upgrade the operating system on your laptop. 

While waiting for my computer to be brought into the modern era, I wandered the mall, finding myself in stores I seldom visit. In Renovations Hardware, I admired a desk made of riveted metal, made to look like a part of an airplane. One of the staff came over to tell me about their current sales, and pointed out that much of the display furniture is half off, and a great opportunity to pick up a few pieces. I thanked her for the information and meandered towards the back of the store. As I walked away, I thought, "well, thanks for thinking I'm actually together enough to own a house, and have enough money to drop a grand on a dining room chair." Of course that couldn't be farther from the truth. 

I don't exactly live paycheck to paycheck.....it's more like season to season. I work ungodly amounts of hours for six months, and then spend the rest of the year spending all of my income. Yes, of course, working in my off-season would be a better choice, but the world hasn't exactly smiled on me in recent years in terms of being paid to do meaningful or enjoyable work. So instead I do that work for free. Last year, I spent my summer with Solar Energy International, learning heaps about renewable energy of all sorts, and this year I spent my summer with Red Feather, building a straw bale house. It's not a bad arrangement, though it certainly leaves me in the position of desperately needing to get back to work come August. 

The guillotine of program cuts hangs over my head, threatening to take my job with the U.S. Antarctic Program away. I am of course completely powerless to do anything about the situation other than curse the powers-that-be that failed to come up with a backup plan for the most important part of the program. Good, bad, or ugly, a fuel tanker is our lifeline at the bottom of the world, and if said tanker cannot get into station because there is no icebreaker to clear the way, well, that presents a bit of a problem for life at the bottom of the world. 

So I'm crossing my fingers, hoping for the best, while mentally preparing for the worst. In addition to doing laundry, repairing my winter coat, and packing, my to-do list also includes updating my resume. Just in case. 

All Grown Up

CINCINNATI, OH


I awoke to the rumbling thunder in the early morning hours, just before the sun should have risen if not for the dark gray thunder clouds. I drifted in and out of sleep while the lightning flashed and the thunder boomed. The intense thunderstorms have been a dime a dozen in the past couple weeks, but what I find quite pleasant about this early wakeup, is that I'm the only one waking up. Last week, while in Chicago staying with my niece and nephew, the nightly thunderstorms kept everyone from sleeping. One loud crack would have my niece flying out of bed into the arms of the nearest grown-up, and while my tiny nephew didn't know enough to be afraid of the storms, he certainly wasn't sleeping through them. 


One night, I laid in my niece's bed with her, fending off terror. As I lay awake, unaccustomed to sleeping with three night lights and bedtime music, I thought to myself, "this definitely makes me a grown-up." When the first of my peers bought a house, I remember talking about at what point one really becomes a grown-up. Surely it is hardly age, in this era of prolonged adolescence that stretches through college. For the overwhelming majority of us who aren't having offspring in our teens and twenties, that surely isn't it either. When Taryn moved into her house, we figured it was owning a lawnmower or major appliances that signaled true grown-up-hood. But as I watch this little person drift in and out of sleep, one paw slung across my chest, the other gripping a stuffed cow, I decide that when you reach the point of being able to slay the nighttime demons, be they thunderstorms or monsters, that's when you know you're a grown-up.