Nostalgia strikes in the night

[theatokos]

I dreamt last night that I was in Juneau, walking out towards Thane. No cruise ship docks, old wooden framed houses, precarious icy dirt slopes to the water. I was having trouble staying balanced on the edge of the road. The sky was slate grey, a typical winter day's sky around 2 in the afternoon. I dream of this light from time to time since it's not available here.

My sister wants me to move to Anchorage. There are many good reasons to move there: nearer to my nieces, nearer to my sis, nearer to the Future Gov; Alaska; free day care: Sis can watch the baby while I work on my PhD. That's hard to pass up.

But Anchorage. It's a hole. If I want strip malls and box stores, gang violence and meth fiends, pretentious rich folk with fancy cars, I can stay right here in the Bay Area! It has many good things too, of course, the most important being that it is in Alaska and if you look up, over the fast food outlets and dingy streets, the mountains and ocean are right there.

But Juneau. I miss that town. Today I am homesick for the water, the overcast impenetrable grey skies, the fishing boats, the snow capped mountains, and even for some of the mind-numbing hometown politics.

Comments

Re:

[howilearned.livejournal.com]

Ah, the ambiguity of the future, and the appeal of the past. And right now: bloatedness (mine a tofurkey baby, yours an actual one.)

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

And that's what's dangerous. Is it the past lost forever to the present? Or is it but a broken continuity? I had always thought that my life would always be entwined in and with Alaska, and then I gave that up, only to wonder if it's really true.

Not being settled is both a myth of my own creation and an honest reality. But is it a "problem" to be "solved"? I'm not sure.