November

Eid                                                         عيد الفطر

The sharpened tip of the butcher’s knife rested on Isaac’s chest. Its blade would soon split his skin, slice between ribs, and dismantle his heart. As it plunged downward the knife would also puncture Isaac’s left lung and continue tearing through muscle and sinew before exiting the back of the body and grinding to a halt against the same stone slab he was tied to. 

Earlier that day, as he prepared for the sacrifice, Abraham and his wife, Hajar, had been tempted by the Devil, who said he could dissolve the deal Abraham had made with God. If Abraham and Hajar simply submitted to Satan, their only son’s life would be spared.

But they didn’t submit. Instead, Hajar and Isaac had thrown rocks and stones at the Devil until they eventually drove him away.        

The Prophet Abraham and his family came from the land of Canaan where they’d lived happily for many years. One day God had asked Abraham to move his family to the valley of Mecca, an uninhabited wasteland of sand dunes and swirling dust. Abraham would leave them there in Arabia and return to Canaan alone. This, the first of many commandments God would give the prophet. And Abraham, eager to obey, gathered his small family and led them south toward Mecca. 

A week’s journey and as they walked, Abraham tried to imagine how he would explain the second part of God’s commandment: That he leave Isaac and Hajar alone in the middle of Arabia and return to Canaan by himself.

After their arrival in Mecca, Abraham began pacing nervously. His wife asked him what was wrong. 

“I have to leave you here,” he said, turning his gaze to the north.

“Why!?”

“I just have to go.”

Hajar grabbed Abraham’s shoulder and he turned to her. 

“Why are you doing this?” she said.

The prophet sighed and peered down at the ground. He raised his eyes to meet her stare. “Because God told me to.” 

Hajar nodded slowly. “Then God will not forget us,” she said. And after a long pause, “You can go.”

So Abraham said goodbye to Isaac. He hugged Hajar a long time, turned northward, and set out for Canaan, leaving his wife and only son alone in the desert.    

This is how Ali explains the Old Testament story of Abraham and Issac. And it’s pretty much the way I remember it from Sunday school. The only difference is that for Muslims, like Ali, Abraham translates to Ibrahim, Isaac becomes Ismael, and God is called by His Arabic name, Allah. 

It’s my first Thanksgiving in Lebanon and this year the American holiday falls on the eve of Eid. My neighbor, Cynthia, has prepared a feast tonight. A week earlier she told me to invite any Americans from my department to join her and her Lebanese friends for dinner and a party commemorating both Thanksgiving and Eid. 

Cynthia’s father, a successful engineer, took a job in the U.S. during the Lebanese Civil War, moving his family to Michigan. She spent the next twelve years in the States before returning to Beirut to attend the University of Lebanon and study Finance. Like so many in Beirut she speaks Arabic and English fluently and loves both Lebanese and American culture. Her family celebrates Ramadan, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, the Lebanese Independence Day, and the Fourth of July. When I arrived tonight, Cynthia introduced me to her cousin, Ali—a tall, thin Arab man with wire-rimmed glasses. We struck up a conversation and I’ve been talking to him ever since.

“It’s a little embarrassing,” I tell him. “But I really didn’t know anything about Eid before coming here tonight. And I still know next to nothing. But I grew up Lutheran and I remember learning about Abraham and Isaac during confirmation.”

Ali smiles. “That’s really all Eid is. A celebration of the same story. Ibrihim’s obedience to Allah and Allah’s offering of a sacrificial lamb.”

In Christianity, Islam, the Druze faith, and Judaism this is where the story usually begins: Ismael tied to a stone slab, his father’s knife poised above the boy’s chest. Ibrahim, moments away from plunging the blade into his son’s heart, squeezes his eyes shut one last time, bracing himself for what he’s about to do when Allah speaks to him, telling him he doesn’t have to kill Ismael. Instead, the Lord himself, will sacrifice a lamb.

I realize Eid’s not only similar to Christian tradition, but the celebration of it’s actually a lot like Thanksgiving, which is probably why both holidays can be memorialized together so seamlessly. I talk to Ali a while longer, but I am starting to wonder about my colleagues from the university. This is their first time meeting my Lebanese friends and I realize I’ve been neglecting them, so I say goodbye to Ali and walk across the room where a cluster of my coworkers are talking with some of Cynthia’s friends. But before I can enter the discussion, we hear Cynthia’s voice from the kitchen. “Time to eat!”

In typical Lebanese fashion, it’s almost 10:00 pm as we gather for dinner. Seven years from now I’ll remember this incredible night and blog about it. Donald Trump will have just been elected president after proposing a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and a registry for those already living in the States.

And I will be home for Thanksgiving.

In North Dakota. About to deliver firewood to the Lakota protestors of Standing Rock who, by that point, will be assaulted day and night with tear gas and firehoses from a militant group of police. Overseas, Isis will be growing more and more violent. More and more widespread. And never in my lifetime (including the first Cold War) will the world seem so close to a nuclear holocaust.

Before sitting down, Cynthia has us stand in a circle, holding hands, heads bowed, each offering our own thanks in turn. 

Mohamed, who is thankful for Obama’s recent election, sees him as one of the most benevolent, intelligent, and tolerant American presidents. One who will not be so quick to make war in the Middle East. Ali is happy his mother has recovered from by-pass surgery. I am thankful for my new friends and Cynthia is glad she could host us tonight. Especially the Americans from the university. Like everyone here, she’s gone out of her way to make us feel welcome.

Later, after dinner, we’ll all countdown to Eid and when the clock strikes midnight Cynthia’s small apartment will swell with shouts and cheers—everyone hugging and raising their glasses.

But for now, we continue giving thanks.

Grateful that today Lebanon is not at war with itself or anyone else. Grateful to be making connections and celebrating new holidays. And yet, in the middle of it, explosions erupt outside and everyone flinches. A shock wave of nerves rippling around our circle, passing from one hand to the next in successive jolts of fear. It sounds like a car bomb followed by machine gun fire.

But, instead, outside Cynthia’s windows, the sky above Beirut opens up with brilliant spiders of red, blue, and purple, leaving temporary imprints on the blackness, then vanishing altogether. Only to be replaced by more fireworks as we run out to the balcony to watch.  

Beirut is beautiful tonight.

The silhouette of high rises glowing orange in the strobe light of fireworks. Shadows dancing. The whole city pulsing and throbbing. The Mediterranean’s dark waters stretching out toward the Atlantic and beyond. To the East Coast of the U.S.

Somewhere out there.

Where the sun is now rising. Sending up its own fireworks of red, orange, and yellow. Sending up its light.

Toward the heavens above.

September

I am haunted.

By memories that flash like ghosts across the back wall of my mind. Haunted by battles I’ve fought with myself. September now and I am back in Colorado. Working at CSU-Pueblo again I’m reminded of my first teaching job when, seven years ago this month, I left the U.S. for the Middle East after accepting a position at the American University of Beirut. I’d grown up during the Lebanese Civil War and, like background noise, it was always around. News of bombings in Beirut. Reports of the death count rising.

But I never paid attention.

I had no idea I’d ever try to find Beirut on a map. Let alone live, work, and lose my mind in that wild corner of the Middle East. Of course the massacre of innocent people bothered me. Wherever it was rumored. But the word Lebanon had always been an abstraction at best. A name I associated with great distance, a vague sense of danger, its conflicts unfolding on the other side of the world over issues that had nothing to do with me.

During my four years studying in Ohio, I’d dreamt of returning to Alaska. Or some place like it. Instead, at the end of it all, I found myself aimed in the other direction. Across the Atlantic. And Mediterranean. Toward a new kind of wilderness, cloaked in exotic fragrance and smoke. Grime. Beirut’s labyrinth of concrete, rebar, and rubble. Mysterious customs and tongues.

After graduating from Ohio University, during a deepening recession, I applied to over sixty jobs—none of which were in Alaska unfortunately—and was lucky that not only one, but two schools offered me positions. Northwestern College, a small Christian school in Orange City, Iowa. And the American University of Beirut.

Even if I was raised Lutheran, Northwestern was not a great fit, though it could’ve been a stepping stone to something better. And, compared to Beirut, I would’ve known exactly what to expect. A small town on the prairie laid out in a simple grid connecting manicured lawns, modest houses, and small conservative churches. A wholesome, mostly white student body required to attend Chapel three times a day.

If there had been no other option, I would’ve taken it—grateful for a paying job in my new field—and tried to make the most of it.

But, instead there was Beirut.

Which, like the Alaska dream of my childhood, represented all the excitement, enigma, and danger of the unknown. The mystery of the Orient was also the power of her seduction. Those hypnotic, Byzantine rhythms playing out in my mind’s imagined melodies. Even if, instead of Iowa, I’d had another job offer in Montana or Colorado, it would’ve been hard to turn down Lebanon. The larger, insane part of me, drawn to chaos and turmoil, would’ve always wondered. On the other hand, even if all Hell broke loose in Beirut and I hated it from the first day, that same crazed side would never have to wonder what it would’ve been like. Either way, I didn’t think I’d ever regret moving to the Middle East. And unlike Orange City, I knew that in Beirut, despite the risk, or maybe because of it, I would never be bored.

So I accepted AUB’s offer, spent that summer securing a work visa and all the necessary shots. By the end of it I’d been vaccinated against nearly every threat to the immune system. Cholera, Hepatitis, Malaria. Egyptian Eggs.

Even the plague.

On September 23, 2009 I got on a plane. Forty-two hours later, after a transatlantic flight to Germany, six hours of shuteye on the floor of the Frankfurt airport, and a choppy five-hour jump to Lebanon, I landed in Beirut.

I’d vowed to return to Alaska after finishing in Ohio, no matter what. At the time, I could never have imagined a place like Lebanon ever coming into the equation. Or the intense desire to use the degree I’d just earned. But there are no excuses. I changed my mind, would have to deal with the consequences. And by getting on that plane, I’d crossed my Rubicon. For the rest of my life, I’d never be the same. Which is probably why I didn’t think much more about it until the plane taxied down the runway, gathered speed, and lifted off the ground.

A sliver of light outlined the horizon. What looked like distant mountains dropping into the sea. Dawn spread out, and I could see beyond the high rises to the Mediterranean, where it met the rugged coast of Lebanon. I’d tossed and turned half the night, finally given up, and spent the predawn hours staring into darkness outside the hotel window. I could see the forms of skyscrapers all around, but it was too dark to pick out details.

My plane had landed just before midnight. A cab driver, already waiting on the street outside, didn’t speak English but held up a sign: ARNEGARD.

The drive from the airport to the Gefinor Hotel, where AUB was paying for me to stay until they helped me find an apartment, took about half an hour. It’s hard to say though. Jet-lagged and disoriented, I recall it mostly as a blur. But from what I could see I remember grey apartment buildings stacked on top of each other. Occasional high rises constructed from what, even at a distance, looked like the cheapest concrete and plaster. One building had been bombed out. No glass left in the windows. No roof. Rebar twisting out of the tops of the walls.

We passed an empty lot full of palm trees. Then another a few blocks later. This time filled with trash and debris. No trees or vegetation whatsoever. Chain link fences with whole sections trampled. Cement walls, topped with razor wire, but blown in half or crumbling in various stages of ruin.

The only color in the city came from its graffiti. The squiggly, rounded symbols of Arabic letters. A yellow flag with a hand holding a machine gun. A billboard image of a bearded man in a long black robe. An important leader from the looks of him, but his shoulder was torn and flapping in the breeze.

We passed a concrete high rise missing its front wall, floors and staircases intact inside, like the cross section of a model skyscraper. Old blankets hung between many of the buildings’ cement balconies. Somewhere along the way we stopped at a checkpoint. The cab driver exchanged words with a young, Arab guard carrying an AK-47, and the gunner waved us on. Past concertina wire, orange blockades, and two tanks facing us on either side of the road.

That was around midnight. And after two days of flying, it felt more like a dream than anything else. But as I woke the next morning, opened the blinds of my hotel window, and watched the sun rise above Beirut, reality began to take hold.

*         *         *

The Housing Department secretary picked up the phone on her desk and told Antoine I was there. She hung up and let me into a room across the lobby.

On the far side of a huge, plush office, a man swiveled around in a chair, stood, and offered his hand as he approached. He towered well over six feet with a white widow’s peak slicked straight back.

“Antoine Chahine,” he said as I shook his hand. “They told me you’d be coming. Have a seat.” He gestured toward a leather chair. “So, you need a place to live.” Antoine looked out his window absently. “There’s really not much right now. Because of Francophone, the entire city’s overbooked.” He explained that Francophone was a huge soccer tournament and festival, and Beirut was this years’ host. “There’s really only a couple available apartments in the whole city. I can put you in one of those for a month until the tourists leave, then we can find another place for you.”

I shrugged and said okay, not realizing at the time that he had no intention of ever finding me another place to live.

“Ghassan will show you the apartments, and you can choose one.” He picked up his phone and spoke Arabic to someone on the other end.

“It was nice to meet you.” Antoine opened his door for me, and when I walked back out, a short, older man stood by the secretary’s desk.

“I Ghassan,” the man said. “Come.”

We walked around the building to a small parking lot and a rusted out International pickup. Samer opened the driver’s door and nodded for me to get in the passenger’s side.

He showed me only two apartments that day. The first, a rundown, grey building tucked away in an alley lacking direct light. The second, a more modern apartment complex called the Orient Queen. Both 1,200 bucks a month, 800 after the subsidy.

I chose the Orient Queen because it was near campus and from my new balcony, if I craned my neck, I’d be able to see a sliver of the Mediterranean between two crumbling high rises. But the Queen was nothing special. It would be like living in a hotel room with a tiny kitchen attached. Otherwise just a bed and bath. Still, it was more than enough for me. All of my belongings had fit in a duffel bag and backpack.

Hamra                                                          شارع الحمراء      

It hadn’t stopped pouring for a week. Angled by wind, the fat drops fell sideways. Horizontal at times. Rainwater, axle deep, rushed down the streets of Hamra—my neighborhood—flushing debris out toward the Mediterranean. Friday night, and I was late meeting my new friend, Zahra—a mystic from the Chouf. Despite the umbrella I bought from a street peddler, I was soaked by the time I showed up at the small, dimly lit restaurant we’d agreed on.

Zahra was already seated when I ducked through the door and the waiter walked me to the far corner where she’d saved us a table.

As I approached, she stood and I kissed her on the cheek. Keefik? I asked. How are you?

“Good,” she said. “You?”

“Wet.”

We sat back down and the waiter poured our waters, handed us both menus. I’d decided to try the raw meat that night. A month ago I’d had my first Fatouche and Tabouleh here. At the time my stomach was still reeling from some local produce, but I’d gotten used to the food and water, and tonight I was trying Kafta: Uncooked lamb, ground with onions and spices. 

After we ordered I asked Zahra about work, and she said it was fine, she just missed the mountains. And her home—Ramleer.

“I’m a village girl,” she said with a smile. “Beirut is too much for me.”

I nodded. “I know what you mean.” I’d told Zahra that before moving I was working on a family farm for the summer. Near the badlands of North Dakota. In a county as big as Lebanon with only five thousand residents.  

“It’s too big for me, too,” I said.

When the waiter brought our food, Zahra glanced at the Kafta on my plate. “That’ll bring out the Druze warrior in you,” she said.

Zahra grew up in a mountainous region of Lebanon guarded by her people for almost a thousand years. Long before fleeing persecution in Egypt the Druze splintered away from Islam to write the Book of Wisdom, a mystical interpretation of the Koran, though Druze reflects elements of Christianity, Judaism, even Buddhism. Their religion had never been institutionalized. Initiates retreated to solitude, studied the Book of Wisdom, and returned to instruct others. But were only teachers. Spiritual interpreters. All Druze prayed directly to God.

“Though most are peace-loving,” Zahra said, “Druze become the fiercest warriors when attacked.” Despite her hatred of violence, pride rose in her voice as she reminded me that no enemy had ever taken the Chouf. No Byzantine or Crusader. Even during the Civil War the Israelis never occupied her people’s land. And the Druze were the only Lebanese to ever defeat Hezbollah in battle.

During the May War of 2008 countless Druze ex-pats left high paying jobs around the world, flew back to Lebanon and defended their homeland. From England, India, the United States, Druze men traded their business suits and brief cases for fatigues and machine guns and protected the Chouf from vicious afronts on all sides.

Zahra was a believer in possibilities and, despite the brutality she’d witnessed, saw hope and virtue in nearly all people. Working for the United Nations downtown, she drafted peace negotiations and helped enact the treaty of 2006 that ended the July War with Israel. She was the best at what she did and loved her job. It’s what kept her and her mother, Nadwa, in Beirut instead of at home in the mountains.

I wondered if the same pacifist nature is what made the Druze the outlaw minority of the Arab World. They didn’t attack or convert. The only way to become Druze was to be born Druze and as a consequence their numbers had never really grown. Only five percent of Lebanon’s population, Zahra’s people had always had less political power. And I knew it bothered her. So I wasn’t surprised when she suddenly changed the subject.

“How’s the Kafta?” she asked.

“Really good.” And it was true. Even cold, it was some of the best meat I’d ever had.

I still wanted to ask her more about the Druze. How they’d spared their homeland from so many enemies. But I could tell Zahra was done for now. She dealt with enough war at work.

When we finished dinner we walked out through the front door, surprised to see the downpour had diminished to a sprinkle. It was only a few blocks to the Daouk Building where Zahra and her mom lived in a third floor apartment. As we approached, Nadwa waved from a cracked concrete balcony, pockmarked with bullet holes.

“Up in a minute,” Zahra hollered.

I gave Zahra a hug and thanked her for meeting me.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s do it again soon.”

I smiled. “I’d like that.” 

On the walk back to my apartment, wet streets and sidewalks glistened. Storefronts were quiet and, up above, bedroom windows darkened one by one. Beyond the rooftops, clouds dissolved in the blueish glow of a waxing moon.

On The Job                                            في مكان

At AUB I had Shi’ite and Sunni students. Druze, Palestinian, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, and Atheist. A few wore traditional burqas, hijabs, or head scarves, but most dressed like average American college students. They wrote powerful and poetic essays. Even though English was no one’s first language, they’d mastered it and used it to tell the most descriptive, beautiful stories.

Christian wrote about his Armenian ancestors, how they narrowly escaped genocide by the Ottoman Empire, and walked across the desert for four days without food. Hiding in caves and drinking from mud puddles until they reached Lebanon.

Mohammed wrote a story about his sister who had dreamt of becoming a dancer until the Summer War of 2006 when an Israeli bullet paralyzed her for life. Now, when she asked Mohammed to take her dancing, he’d carry her up to their apartment’s rooftop, where he’d built a makeshift swing, and push her back and forth in the hazy air of downtown Beirut.

Lebanon was so splintered that my students had never studied history after World War II. Public schools didn’t teach it because no one could agree on such a complicated past. Whoever wrote the textbook—the Arab Christians, Sunni or Shi’ite Muslims, the Palestinians or the Druze—would each have their own unique stories to tell. No one could agree on who started the Civil War. The Maronite crusader who shot a busload of Palestinians the day the country erupted in tumult? Or the Palestinians who set up their base of operations in Beirut to wage war against Israel? Was it the fault of Israel for displacing millions of innocent people to begin with? Were the Christian terrorists to blame? Or the fundamentalist Muslims?

Things get a little confusing when Western countries, like France and England, start divvying up foreign lands. Where rivers and mountains once separated opposing tribes and cultures before World War I, suddenly arbitrary, geometric lines brought fierce enemies under the same laws. Clans who wanted nothing to do with each other found themselves sharing the same flag.

Lebanon was permanently scarred. Too many conflicts to count—the Civil War often called the Big War so as not to confuse it with all the smaller wars before it. Or since.

And it was even more confusing to me.

Luckily, I had my students to teach me about Lebanon’s history and politics. Samer, an awkward, lanky kid, always wanted to talk, and after class we’d walk across campus together. 

“So, why did you come here?” he once asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just wanted to see Beirut. To learn more about it.”

He stopped and turned. “You just wanted to see Beirut? You mean, you didn’t have to come?”

“No. I had another job offer, but I wanted to experience the Middle East. To see for myself what it was really like.”

We started walking again and Samer shook his head. “I just want to get my degree and find a job in the States. I don’t want to witness any more violence.”

Samer had told me about the summer war of 2006. How he’d seen the battleships cruising the Mediterranean from his bedroom window. Felt bombs rattle the walls of the small apartment he and his father shared.

Finally reaching his bus stop on the other side of campus, we’d stop.

“Mooshrant,” I’d tell him. Goodnight.

He’d always smirk at my pronunciation. Then say, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sir. Goodnight.”

From Beirut I was able to travel to the most amazing parts of the Middle East. The Dead Sea. Mt Nebo. Petra. The baptismal site of Christ. Damascus. Even the pyramids.

But it was the other parts of Lebanon that were the most interesting. Once you drove north, out of Beirut, the country was pristine. Breath-taking. Most of the people in the rural areas would give you the shirt of their backs. Qadisha. The Sacred Valley. The ruins of Baalbek. And the towering cedar groves in the mountains up north. All some of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

Still, my time in Beirut, wasn’t all fun.

Car bombings and the constant threat of war took their toll. I missed the U.S. much more than I thought I would. Missed other Americans. And all the freedom I’d taken for granted in the States. I especially missed the American West. The Rockies. The wilderness.

So, I was incredibly lucky when I landed my job in Colorado. Although a lot went wrong before I made it home.

I met a Lebanese woman. Our courtship was fast and furious and we were married way too soon. It was my fault. I’d not understood the social codes of the Middle East. How fast it can happen. How people don’t date in Lebanon the way we think of dating in the U.S. How, if you visit a woman’s village, her community, friends, and family, you’d better already be engaged. They’ll be expecting it. She’ll be expecting it.

And soon.

It all started when I began tutoring a woman who wanted to master English and move to the U.S. Before long we became more than tutor and student. Soon we were romantic and barreling toward matrimony. I felt unbelievable pressure. It was scandalous for her to have a boyfriend and no plans of marriage. Even more scandalous to be dating an American.

She was beautiful. Bright and funny. And I let myself get caught up in all of it. Thought that a deeper love and understanding would come later. As if it were something we could manufacture and cultivate ourselves.

We married way too soon. Before we’d had time to learn crucial things about each other. Before ever truly knowing each other. She knew I wanted to move to the U.S. though. As soon as possible. It’s one of the first things I told her. But neither of us thought it would happen so fast. That within that first year I’d find a job like the one in Pueblo. And ultimately, like a lot of Lebanese, she’d realize she didn’t really want to leave friends and family. Or her home. No matter how dangerous that home was.

When I got my job in Colorado she came with me. At first. But she hated Pueblo. Felt bored with Colorado. So she went back to Lebanon. My first year in Colorado, and for most of our short marriage, we lived on opposite sides of the Earth. During that entire year we maybe spent a total of three or four weeks under the same roof. I was miserable when I visited her in Beirut. Especially without my job at AUB. And she was miserable whenever she was in the U.S. with me. One of us always homesick and too reliant on the other. No balance at all. And no similar interests. We hadn’t had the time to figure it all out beforehand.

We’d hit a wall in the dark. Stumbling around blind, neither of us able to climb or figure a way around.

Divorce is incredibly sad. Even in the best of situations. Even when there are no children or assets to fight over. Especially for her. A divorced woman in the Middle East? It’s terrible. And not a day goes by that it doesn’t haunt me.

Antoine Chahine, the head of Housing at AUB, only housed people like me in places where he got kickbacks. Francophone had been a convenient excuse to convince me and my colleagues that the Orient Queen was the only possible place to live. And I ended up hating it there, but when I told them I was moving out early, they delivered me a bill for all the “extra” charges they’d never told me about. Charges that, had I known of them the first month, I would’ve paid and left immediately. Instead they’d been secretly accruing for almost a year.

And I couldn’t pay.

Although I probably should’ve found a way. But it was more the principle of the situation so I fought them on it. Like a fool. Little did I know my landlords were part of Amal, one of the most powerful terrorist groups in Lebanon. And they contacted the authorities. Placed my name on a list at the airport so I couldn’t leave the country and came looking for me. For days I hid out, living as a fugitive until Najib, an attorney friend of mine, helped broker a deal for my safety.

Still, I didn’t pay. I couldn’t. And still they threatened to collect in any way they could.

Finally, Jim Radulski, the head of Human Resources at AUB, called me in for a meeting. He and everyone else at the university had expected me to pay after enough harassment, a night in jail maybe. Or worse. But when that didn’t happen my employers were forced to deal with it, so that no harm came to me to make the university look bad. So Radulski bartered his own deal where AUB paid the cost of what I’d been extorted for and set up a plan for me to pay half of it back. But first I made him get my name off the airport list so I could leave the Middle East. And later, when he finally did, I’ve never felt so light or free as when that plane lifted off the runway, off Lebanese soil, and carried me home.

Where I am lucky to be alive.

Lucky for the amazing job I have and the incredible students I work with in Pueblo. In a way I wish they’d never graduate so I could continue working with them indefinitely. But I want them to graduate. To succeed. And go on to be as happy in life as I am. No. Happier.

I’m fortunate to be where I am, I know. Grateful to be intact after all the mistakes I’ve made. The regrets. The sleepless nights. Staring up through blackness for hours on end. The wild years. The darkness. I’m lucky I’ve survived long enough to reign it in. To start the difficult, but essential work, of taming the tendency toward chaos.

Still, I am haunted by the battles I’ve fought.

And haunted by all these ghosts.

July

Years ago I was hiking south down the Haul Road with a sawed-off shotgun strapped to my pack. Somewhere between Deadhorse and Coldfoot but a hundred miles from either. Hadn’t seen a car, truck, or semi for what seemed like hours. When I heard a distant buzzing, I squinted into the sky to see a bush plane, above the peaks, gradually growing larger. Passing overhead it dipped a wing and started circling, slowly spiraling down toward me. As it began its final descent, the engine whined, screaming through higher RPM’s as the tires hit the road with a plume of dust and I hustled to the shoulder to get out of its way. The plane finally came to a stop only a few yards from me. After the propeller lurched to a halt with a final backfire, the sheriff of the Yukon-Koyokuk Burough stepped out and faced me. Six and a half feet tall, he spoke through the bushiest handle bar mustache I’d ever seen.

“How’s it going,” he said as I walked up to him.

“Going good.”

“You the owner of that green pickup down the road?”

“No, I hitched up here,” I told him. “Hiked around a few days. Now I’m headed back to Fairbanks.”

The sheriff nodded. His eyes ran up and down my pack and I remembered I had the shotgun strapped to the back. The stock sticking out from one side of me, the jagged, sawed-off barrel sticking out from the other. His eyes stopped on the shotgun and that was the first time the implications even dawned on me. I’d sawed off the barrel to make it lighter. Easier to strap to the outside of my pack. Bear protection. I hadn’t even considered the legalities. Second degree felony. Serious jail time. And for a scruffy-faced, long-haired hitch-hiker like me, they’d probably throw away the key.

“What’s that thing for?” He nodded toward the barrel.

“Bears,” I said.

His brow furrowed. He paused a long time to think about that as my heart pounded against my ribcage. I waited to hear my rights. As I looked down at the pistol on his hip I could already feel the cuffs bite into my wrist. Finally his head moved up and down slowly as he scanned the slopes around us.

“Well,” he said, nodding again. “Plenty of them around.”

His eyes met mine, knowingly, and I risked a smile. “Yup.”

“All right.” The sheriff straightened up. “You run into the owner of the pickup just have him call the office in Coldfoot. He can leave his rig here as long as he wants.” He gazed back out at the mountains. “I just wanna make sure he’s not lost or injured out here somewhere.” 

Then he turned to walk back to the plane.

“Sounds good,” I said.

As the engine fired up I watched him pull down the road, gather more speed, and finally lift off the gravel. He circled back upward, growing smaller in the distance, and finally disappearing. One of only a handful of law enforcers in the Yukon-Koyukuk Burough—the largest municipality on Earth. Spanning much of Alaska, it’s roughly the size of Montana. Or Germany. And there’s only one road running through it.

The Dalton Highway. 

Otherwise known as the Haul Road. Built to service the pipeline. When I first drove it to Deadhorse years ago, the ruts and washboard bumps rattled the rearview mirror off my windshield and nearly shook my pickup to pieces. Even now, it’s mostly gravel. Mostly travelled by truckers driving to or from Deadhorse. The occasional caribou hunter headed to the North Slope.

Walk any direction from the road and you go back in time. Into the biggest wilderness you can access without hiring a pilot. That’s why I keep coming back. 

July and I have been up here five days so far. I broke a tent pole that I fixed with duct tape and a caribou antler. Walked through a blizzard. My tent was flattened by a windstorm and half my gear blew off the side of a mountain. I’ve never known such a windy, unseasonably cold Brooks Range but I’ve already seen moose, caribou, and a wolverine. And the weather’s drastically improved in the last two days. Now I’m sitting on a boulder overlooking the drainage I just traversed. Forty years old. Never thought I'd live this long, so I planned accordingly. Which is to say I never planned at all. Always lived in the moment. But here I am. And I’m ready for another forty, so it's time for some changes. Time to drink less beer and more water. Pay attention to the foods I buy at the store. Time to save up for land of my own. To be less selfish and treat people better. Time for less recklessness. 

I gaze back over the valley. I hiked up into the range when my last ride dropped me off north of Atigun Pass. Since then I’ve not seen another soul. In fact, all these years I’ve come up here, I’ve never seen another human being in the Brooks Range unless it was someone I brought with me. 

Like Mike and Jesse. 

Two of my closest friends. When they said they were coming to Alaska I knew I had to bring them to the Arctic. Everyone should see the Brooks Range. Of course, if everyone did, it would lose so much of what I love about it. That back-in-time feeling I only get in places like this. The wildness. The unpeopled vastness. And the quiet. 

Before we left the Goldstream Valley, where I was living at the time, Mike, Jesse, and me bought a hundred dollar 12 gauge at a pawn shop in Fairbanks. After a quick contest with some of our empty Pabst cans back at my cabin that night--trying to determine who was the best shot--we put Mike in charge of the gun. 

There are lots of theories about bear protection. And bears in general. At times I’ve come to places like the Brooks Range unarmed. No gun or bear spray. And I’ve never had a problem. But a lot of it’s just dumb luck. And I’ll admit I feel safer up here when I’m carrying, even though some people arm themselves to the teeth and still get mauled. There was a couple floating the Koyokuk not too many years ago. They camped on an island. After they’d eaten, they stored all their food and anything that smelled on a different island. They also changed and left their sweaty clothes with the food. And the couple had a gun with them in their tent. Still, later that night, after they’d fallen asleep, they were both mauled to death by a grizzly.

I’m a Colorado resident these days, so I can no longer buy a firearm in Alaska. I’m not crazy about guns, but I'm a big fan of our 2nd amendment and I’ve owned a few hunting rifles over the years. My buddy, Wayne, has lent me his .45 for trips like these, insisting that I bring it. But if I don’t happen to be armed I come anyway. I just try to build a fire at the end of the day and carry an air horn for any bear that might be sniffing around my tent at night—the time I’m most vulnerable.

Grizzlies are unpredictable, but there are certain rules of thumb. Don’t surprise them, for one thing. And if you give them plenty of space most of them will leave you alone. Never get between a sow and her cubs or make any mama bear feel like you’re a threat. I make noise when I’m in the woods. Or the brush. Or any kind of alder jungle where I can barely see my hand in front of my face. I don’t want to startle a bear and spark his predatory instinct. But I’m usually above tree line where I can see a grizzly a mile away, make him aware of me, and avoid him with as much room to spare as possible. I’ll pile wet wood or a damp root ball on top of my fire at night so it’ll burn long and slow and smolder as much as possible while I sleep. Most animals hate smoke. Harnessing fire, for our distant ancestors eons ago, was a major evolutionary game changer.

Like people, there is the occasional crazy bear who doesn’t follow the rules. My friend, Mark, was hiking in Southeast Alaska when a brown bear charged him in an alpine meadow. A charging grizzly runs faster than a horse and Mark only had a matter of seconds to lift his 12 gauge and empty the shotgun into the bear who still nearly reached him before falling dead at his feet. The next summer, after he’d hiked back up to retrieve the jawbone for Fish and Game to analyze, they told him the bear had had an abscess. 

If I had a toothache I couldn’t do anything about I’d probably want to kill someone, too. 

Lots of times it’s older bears with nothing left to lose who are probelmatic. Grizzlies with injuries causing them pain and no amount of bear spray or air horns will stop them. Nothing short of a twelve gauge. And that’s only if you squeeze off a couple of shots in time. Still, deadly or not, a wild Grizzly is an awesome sight. They have home ranges as big as 600 square miles which is why there aren’t many places left where they naturally roam. 

Mike, Jesse, and me never saw any bears on that particular trip, but we hiked two or three days in from the Haul Road before turning around and heading back to my pickup. I remember the final few miles. It was after midnight and we still had plenty of daylight, but we shouldn’t have been hiking. We were just too tired to stop and pitch our tents. And if we had stopped we would've collapsed for sure. All any of us wanted was the comfort of the truck, parked on a pull off by the pipeline next to the first creek we hiked up. 

We’d been chewed up by mosquitoes, drained from walking mile after mile on spongy tussocks (which is like trying to walk on basketballs), our feet bloody from blisters, and generally delirious with exhaustion. We weren’t even hiking side by side or single file anymore. We weren’t even friends that night. A quarter mile of space between us and each one on his own death march to the truck. 

When we finally made it, I crawled under the topper, Jesse curled up in the cab, and Mike laid down on his sleeping mat under the axels. Less than an hour later a generator kicked on next to us. An oil worker with a water truck was filling up from the creek. A walrus of a man who barely fit into his Carhartt overalls. He turned the engine off for a second as we emerged from all corners of the pickup.

“Sorry for the rude awakening,” he said. “Just doing my job.” 

Then he fired up the generator again.

But none of us cared. We all passed back out and slept like the dead. Deafening generator or not.

The time before that was a Dall sheep hunt with Scott and Heath. Three weeks of scrambling up these steep slopes, carrying packs and rifles. August and already well into Fall up here. We’d marched through a few snow storms by then and I’ve never eaten so much in my life. Calories for the days, when we never stopped hiking. Calories before bed, to keep us warm through the night. Oatmeal; grits with tons of melted cheese; whole sticks of butter; mayonnaise by the spoonful. And, still, we each lost twenty pounds. Came back in the best shape of our lives. 

Yeah. The Brooks Range stories go on and on. But wait. 

I need to back up and start over. Because none of this is actually about shotguns or sheep hunts. Not even close. The machismo? Bravado? It’s taken me all this time to realize that this place is really about tranquility. Lichen. Spongy moss and granite. Vulnerability. The Brooks Range strips me of my ego and forces me to face my demons. Dwarfed by these nameless peaks, I am at the mercy of all kinds of weather. In my tent at night my heart pounds when I hear something creeping around outside and imagine that that something is eight hundred pounds of muscle, fur, teeth, and claws. The Blackfeet say the Creator sent bears to Earth to humble man. And I believe it. 

The Brooks Range is not about the stories you later tell over a few drinks at the bar. Hoping they might actually impress someone. It's about that stillness you could never describe in a million years. It's about walking alone through a light rain, under a low ceiling of clouds. Across an empty valley bursting with Aven and Lupine. Toward those distant slopes. And up. To where everything disappears into the mist.

June

It’s the wildness I’m drawn to. You can take the rest.

And not just the wildness of this place. But the people, too. June and I'm camped on the banks of the Susitna River outside Talkeetna. A sunny day and I have a perfect view of Denali. Talkeetna, where I used to live--my home base now when I come back to Alaska--has grown a lot but it's still an end-of-the-road town. Back in the day it was common to see grizzlies strolling down Main Street. And, even now, I don’t know many other places where I could pitch a tent in such a beautiful spot. Have this whole beach to myself. And still be walking distance from the Fairview, a bar and roadhouse that stays open past 4:00am and is filled most nights with some of the best music I’ve ever heard. The Denali Cooks, Jack Fickel, Rodney Ennis.

We’re only two weeks away from the solstice. Since I got here I’ve hardly seen any darkness. Just a few hours of twilight a night. You could drive without headlights at 2:00am. Or hike all night without a flashlight. And when I head north—above the Arctic Circle—it will always be light. No twilight or dusk. All the plants and trees on this beach have already kicked into high gear and are growing at phenomenal rates. Photosynthetic overdrive. That’s how homesteaders up here raise cabbage the size of basketballs. Twenty pound heads of broccoli.

Outside of Anchorage, Wasilla, or Fairbanks there are virtually no fences in Alaska. Only one percent of the state is privately owned. The rest is all open country. Frontier. Wilderness. There are few laws, fewer law enforcers, and no one to tell you what to do.

I’d been aimed at Alaska my whole life. Or at least as long as I can remember. Some of the first books I ever read? White Fang. Call of the Wild. And Jack London’s prose only stoked a fire that was already raging inside me. To strike out into the unknown. Seek out the maps’ dwindling blank spots. Maybe it’s my Viking blood. Something hardwired or genetic. I’m not sure, but for whatever reason there are those of us who feel a craving to explore.

Not a craving. A need.

After school in Montana I went back to Dakota for a year to work the family farm and whatever other ranch-hand jobs I could find. I was helping out my family. But I was also saving for Alaska. When I had the money, I bought a pickup with a topper. Threw a mattress and all my belongings in the back. Camped out in it all the way up through British Columbia and the Yukon. When I got to Alaska I drove all over the state. Backpacking and fishing. But, more importantly, looking for a place to live. A town with a pulse. But off the beaten path. And I knew it when I found it.

Talkeetna.

Being back here again and sitting along the banks of the Su with this particular view of Denali, memories start flowing. But I don’t let them wash over me like a flood. I take them in one at a time.

Walking to town before dawn. Red and green ribbons dancing above the Alaska Range. And, out of nowhere, a meteor shower. White-hot signatures of fire ripping across the sky. Lighting up Denali with their fireworks.

Tim and me up Clear Creek. Snagging Reds to fill his boat. Floating back to town to fry them up at the Fairview with Rodney.

Twenty below the night me and Dancing Bear find the moose in a stand of spruce. Kneel around the bull as he teaches me how to butcher. Together we dismantle the limbs by headlamp as our fire reflects crystals in the snow, like distant fallen stars, sunken around us in all that whiteness.

Way up on the North Slope. Thousands of caribou dotting the tundra. North America’s last great herd.

Kathleen’s cabin. A group of us on the middle of her frozen pond. Huddled around telescopes mounted into the ice. Amazing. The moons of Jupiter. Rings of Saturn. And beyond it all, the Milky Way. Ancient purple gases flowing overhead, somewhere centuries away.

That summer I lived in the Bush. On Lake Iksgiza. Building cabins for Phil. Catching grayling every night. Growing tomatoes the size of soft balls.

My first caribou. Near Toolik Lake. Scanning the tundra for bears as I slice the shoulder away from the rest of the carcass. How that pool of blood reflects crimson in the midnight sun.

Ryan and me. Kayaking across Blackstone Bay. Our paddles cutting glassy, turquoise water as we weave between icebergs. Then, in the distance, an ice sheet the size of a house. Calving from the glacier with a roar. Sending foam fifty feet high.

In the Brooks Range. That grizzly crossing the river in front of me. Three feet of white water slamming against her body and she doesn’t even flinch. Hardly seems to notice.

And that chorus of wolves. Outside my tent up Riley Creek. How those soulful howls echo across the Alaska Range.

But not just the experiences. The people. Some have moved on. Montana Annie. Ace. Cliff Hudson. Some, like me, come and go. Deb Wolfe. Karon Jahn. Both world travelers who always circle back to the Last Frontier.

There are those who have stayed. Nancy and Mac down at the Latitude. My first and best employers here. Richard and Linda out on Birch Creek. In their sixties they're still living off the grid on a diet of mostly salmon, moose, and other wild game. Tim and Sharla, who raise their daughter in a yurt outside of town. Later this month they’re throwing a huge birthday bash for Tim's fortieth. It's going to be a highlight of my summer. Friends of all ages dancing in the grass. Winterland rocking out on a home-made wooden stage.

But until then I need to get back to the mountains.

Tomorrow morning I’ll break camp to stick my thumb out on the Parks Highway. And head north to the Brooks Range. Through Fairbanks and Coldfoot. Over Atigun Pass and into the Arctic. Time to unplug and re-boot. Soak up the beauty of some of the last true wilderness in North America. To gain the perspective only that level of solitude can offer. No need for clocks or cell phones where I’m going. No need for time. Take it.

Take my youth. Take my money, what little there is. Take all of my belongings. Take everything.

But leave the wildness.

May

What to do with a life.

What to give. What to take. How much to squeeze out of our fleeting time here. It’s the middle of May and I’m ecstatic. The school year’s over. I’ve turned in my key for the cabin I rent west of Pueblo and loaded everything into my car. Headed north a few days ago to Dakota—my final stop before Alaska. This is where I leave my car for the summer. More importantly, I’m here to spend time with my folks. After a week together they’ve left on their own trip to Montana. I’ll be gone by the time they come back. And I’ve spent these last few days alone in the farmhouse organizing my camping gear. Distilling everything down till I can carry what I need on my back.

Tomorrow I fly to Alaska. But first, a walk around the old homestead.

My Dad rebuilt this farm out of total collapse. Took him most of his life and I’ve spent much of mine helping him. Planting and harvesting crops. Fixing old equipment. Driving grain trucks, combines, and tractors since I was twelve. But I didn’t want to take over the farm. And a year ago, at the age of 78, my dad retired. The days of breaking his back on this plot of land are over. Which means mine are pretty much over, too. And that’s hard to stomach. We were a team. We faced drought, locusts, hail, plummeting wheat prices. Grew incredible crops some years. Flax, sunflower, canola, durum. Other years were total failures. But we were in it together. Always.

There is nothing like the bond of a family.

Nothing more comforting or painful. Nothing more natural. Ignited. Blessed. Looking back at the house I shudder to think of a time when it’ll be empty. No one on their way back home. No coffee brewing in the kitchen. No card games. No laughter or tears. No muddy work boots beside the front door.

Outside, the old tractor slouches toward the ground, weeds already wrapping around the axels, pulling them closer to the earth. As a boy I rode next to my dad on the arm rest, watching closely, as he showed me how to drive. How to work the hydraulic levers. The throttle and choke. Now, neither of us will sit behind that wheel again. He certainly won’t. My dad, who has always been larger than life to me. I never thought I’d see him retire from anything. As I watch him downshift his life into a slower gear I feel his mortality in my bones. In every cell of my body.

Still. These bones have a long way to go before I finish my circle.

A final look around the yard. All the equipment, choked with tumbleweeds and beat down by weather, will decay now. It’s already started; rust is on the move. Like arthritis. Or cancer. Like sludge filling arteries. Cementing joints. The old combine, slumped even lower to the ground, one cracked headlight staring wall-eyed to the east. The dusty, slouching grain bins. Empty of everything but the memory of wheat. For generations equipment has decayed on this farm. Old cars and trucks. The blacksmith shop. But until now, things were also cared for and maintained around here. Revitalized. Brought back to life.

I shake my head.

And turn to walk inside and pack for the airport. Tomorrow I’ll fly over the endless glaciers and ice fields of the Canadian Rockies, the midnight sun bright overhead. Descending along the rugged, mountainous coastline of the North Pacific I’ll touchdown in Anchorage and head north into the Interior. The Great Land. Home. What to do with a life. How much to glean from one.

I’m not sure. But I intend to squeeze out every last drop.

April, 2016

My Spirit is Strong.

And I can’t imagine it diminishing much till the day I die. But my body will. And that thought is hard to swallow. Terrifying, really. Like a runaway train I might be able to slow down but can’t turn around or grind to a halt. It’s April 1st and I’ve hiked to one of the highest points of Silverton Mountain. Snow fell heavily for the last few days and I’m getting ready to descend down chutes, bowls, eventually glades and thicker stands of spruce, carving turns into fresh, untouched powder. I’ve got my avalanche gear in my pack: beacon, probe, and shovel.

But, first I’m going to enjoy the view.

From this 13,000 foot pinnacle, on a cloudless bluebird day, I see the craggy peaks of the San Juan Mountains shooting toward the sky in all directions. Even for Colorado these jagged summits are impressive and look more like the Alps or Himalayas than the Rocky Mountains I’m used to.

Soon enough I’ll be in Alaska again, God willing. If I don’t injure myself today or in the coming weeks, I’ll be packed and ready to head north by mid-May. This is no doubt one of my last days chasing powder for now, and though there’s nothing I like better, I’m also thrilled to swap snowboard and skis for backpack and boots and stick my thumb out on the Haul Road, headed toward the Brooks Range. Or the Chugach. Or maybe south, to the towering glaciers and salmon-choked streams of the Kenai Peninsula.

When I returned from the Middle East in 2010, I headed back to Alaska, where I used to live for many years. Talkeetna, Esther, the Goldstream Valley. Some of the only places that ever felt like home. Rundown cabins across the state. Off the grid and pretty much off the map. Since then I’ve spent every summer back up there. Hitching around the Last Frontier. Looking up old friends. Backpacking across the largest remaining tracts of wilderness in North America.

This summer, like any, could easily be my last.

Not that it’s that dangerous, although I’m mostly alone and, because of the improvisational way I travel, friends and family often don’t know where I am. I sometimes don’t know where I am until I get there. And even then, not always. I could be headed to the Arctic and see a drainage along the way that I never noticed before. It may call to me for whatever reason. And I’ll tell the trucker, fisherman, hunter, whoever picked me up hitch-hiking, to stop and let me out. Without cell reception there’ll be no way to call in my coordinates. It’s a risk I have to take to travel without itinerary or structure. To let my adventure evolve naturally.

There are other risks, like Grizzlies. But in all my time in Alaska I’ve only seen a handful up close. And none of those bears seemed all that interested in me.

No, it could be my last summer of this kind because there are so many other places I want to see. And well, I’m halfway through my life and not sure I need to be doing this forever. I turned forty in January and, if I keep taking care of my body, it could hold out another four decades, but there are other reasons. As much as I’ve always been independent, loved my freedom, and sought out periods of solitude, there are other ways to charge my life with meaning. In the last few years, more than ever, I’ve craved a family of my own. Whatever that might look like. Wife and kids? Maybe. Living closer to good friends? Sure. Moving back to Alaska? I think about it every day. Or maybe just being a part of some kind of community again. Who knows where. And maybe it’s a kind of community I can’t even imagine yet.

Or not.

If none of that happens, I could see myself continuing to ski, snowboard, paddle, hike, hunt, fish, and explore the West—from New Mexico to Alaska—for another forty years. There are certainly worse things. If I don’t find someone, make a family or community for myself, that sort of thing seems to be the projection. And I would be the first to count myself lucky if I continued such a life.

But. If I begin sharing this amazing journey in a more serious, committed way—the way I want to—then I have to be prepared to make some changes. And one of the most significant changes would be not bumming around Alaska all summer. Not bumming around at all. Anywhere. And maybe less time in the wild. Maybe not. But definitely less time calling my own shots.

So, more than ever, I’ll be treating this summer up north as if it’s my last.

And with that thought I stare down at the pristine snow fields below me. I’m still in Colorado for now and want to enjoy every second of this mountain, this unbelievable beauty. To taste the unparalleled sensation of rising above powder, like surfing on clouds. A floating, flying, weightless kind of feeling. Carving the most fluid, buttery turns. Each one transcendental, sublime.

Fleeting.

A grin forms inside my beard as I strap into my board and push up onto my feet. Waiting for that simple thrill of speed. Velocity. Gravity’s inescapable pull. And the rush of that sharp mountain air around my face. With that, I inch forward, the tip of my board sliding out beyond the edge of the ridge, where it hangs, momentarily. Suspended a thousand feet above the lower slopes of Silverton.

Then I push off. And drop in.