Becoming Frozen

by Jill Homer

  “Pain and suffering,” I called out to Geoff. “Ha!” If only Tracey in Iowa could be here with us, riding an ice bike along this ridge, with the frost-coated forest painted by a late morning sunrise, I thought. She would understand what we sought was the opposite of pain and suffering. Everything here was color, light, and bursts of energy that resonated as joy in our minds. With simple adjustments in attitude, bodies were quick to adapt. Eleven degrees didn’t feel so cold anymore. The long darkness didn’t feel like such an hindrance. People are products of their landscape. Given enough time and experience, even the most extraordinary conditions become ordinary.

  Still, Tracey obviously saw something unique in the act of riding a bicycle in Alaska in December, and admired it enough to send me ten dollars. More contributions continued to trickle through the extraordinarily diverse net of the World Wide Web. The skier from Minnesota expressed anticipation for a future Susitna 100 race report, even if my version didn’t involve any death planks. John in Maine said winter was cold where he lived, too, so he could sure as hell cough up a few bucks to ensure I buy better clothing than what I was using. People who weren’t strangers also intervened. Monika, one of our friends from the D Street crew who now lived in Michigan, simply responded with a valid but misinformed question — “What has Geoff put you up to now?” Chris, who had helped comfort me on more than one occasion of adventure-induced panic, followed his donation with a personal e-mail along the lines of “I don’t have a clue what prompted this, but I don’t want you to die.”

  In the hidden context of strangers’ and friends’ messages, I sensed a widening split between my past self — the person my friends knew and the person I understood myself to be — and my future self — the person the readers of my blog envisioned and the person I wanted to become. The person Chris and Monika knew was a lover of adventure but often hobbled by doubt and timidity. She viewed her body as necessary but not her first priority — it was more important that her mind reach heights of awareness amid natural landscapes even if her body was weak and struggling. Nutrition, gear and training were distant afterthoughts. She had no patience for the discipline and dedication of an athlete. Training was only as good as her resolve to get something done, and she rarely paid attention to the nuances of preparedness. She wore jeans and Sketchers on twelve-hour canyoneering adventures. She was terrified of moving water and exposure, clung precipitously to ledges while her friends dove from cliffs, and expanded her risk acceptance in the smallest increments possible.

  Geoff knew this person from the beginning, and he had regularly been the witness to moments I finally released my grip on the ledge and let my body plunge into the waters of chance. He contributed with gentle urgings to let go, and also by teaching me how to navigate these new depths once I arrived. Geoff’s influence was the main reason I had expanded my horizons to the farthest corners of my psychological safety net, but the Susitna 100 constituted a blind leap off the edge. Even Geoff didn’t approve, although he remained supportive.

  Now I had an assortment of strangers around the world who knew me not as a timid non-athlete or dabbler in outdoor sports, but as a fierce and dedicated winter cyclist. For someone who had always been a follower in a decidedly more experienced group of friends, it was surprising to receive e-mails from people across the globe who regarded me as some kind of expert. They said my blog inspired them to venture outside during the winter months, or try ice biking, or simply get over their motivational hump and go to the gym. “If you can ride a bike outside in Alaska all winter long,” one woman wrote, “I can certainly spend an hour on the treadmill.”

  I often sat at my home computer, bundled in cheap fleece jackets and flannel pajama bottoms, bemusedly pondering my new identity. “If only they knew,” I would smile to myself. From the narrow window of my blog, these strangers couldn’t see the fifth-grader who was laughed off the softball field after she threw a pitch that failed to reach the plate. They didn’t know the sophomore who failed to make the generous cut for her high school’s cross-country team because she didn’t crack ten minutes for a mile run. They couldn’t know the seventeen-year-old who was still incapable of serving a volleyball over the net. I had spent my entire childhood being so distressingly bad at competitive sports that I hid the entire notion of athletics behind a curtain of resentment. I couldn’t even watch Olympic events without feeling mildly disgusted. “Jocks,” I would shake my head in derision. “A life of rigid training for the superficial goal of physical perfection. What do they know of the beauty of the world or discovery of their true selves?”

  The culture that heralded athletic excellence only served to drive me further away from anything resembling a competitive effort. For too long I had compared throwing a baseball with climbing a mountain, convinced I must be equally bad at both. The fact that I loved to climb mountains was something I viewed as a fluke, a diversion from my natural path. “I was built to become an accountant, or maybe a librarian,” I would joke with my friends as I flung my awkward limbs up a rocky slope. Like many young women, I had a negative body image, but this had more to do with my abilities than my looks. If asked to describe myself, the first words that came to mind were slow, clumsy, and average. For physical attributes, I thought of my tree-trunk legs, too-large butt, and flimsy upper body. Still, I always believed that the strength and beauty of the body were only a superficial shadow of the strength and beauty of the mind. I needed discovery of the outdoors to expand my mind. I needed my body to get there.

  A dismissive attitude about competitive sports persisted, but I couldn’t help but draw satisfaction from the ways in which my body was becoming stronger. My legs developed new definition where muscles bulged against my skin. My collar bone and shoulder blades became more pointed. Fat was beginning to melt from my torso. My heart beat stronger and my lungs drew cold air with an intensity that could have crushed the gasping breaths of my youth. Fitness settled over me like armor, protecting my mind from its own uncertainties and fears. In turn, my mind perpetuated a heroic story about becoming the endurance athlete my blog readers thought me to be. So I pushed my body harder.

  This satisfaction was what kept me pedaling after I was too exhausted to find motivation in the scenery. Geoff talked me into installing an odometer on my bike. I’d long resisted the mile counter, and preferred to move unencumbered without the tyranny of numbers to bog down my perception of flight. But I agreed that I needed to track speed and time in order to improve. It didn’t take long for the numbers to start taunting me. If I averaged seven miles per hour on the climb up West Hill Road, I was driven to push it to eight. If my fastest speed was thirty-two miles per hour down East Hill Road, I wanted to gun for thirty-five. If I completed the Kachemak Drive loop in three hours and six minutes, it became necessary to cut that to less than three. Even as my lungs seared in the cold wind and legs burned with lactic acid, my mind targeted those numbers as a source of motivation.

  Geoff turned around from the “pain and suffering” when he felt like it, about eight miles from our cabin. I continued along Skyline and up the ice-coated gravel of Ohlson Mountain Road. As I climbed, my arteries pumped warm blood beneath chilled skin, and my mind cycled through a whirlwind of emotions and ideas: elation ... what Geoff and I would do with the upcoming weekend ... fatigue ... the article I needed to finish that afternoon ... gratitude ... the weirdly personal conversation I had with the clerk at Ulmer’s Hardware Store yesterday ... hunger. For all of the benefits of my new training habits, it was the unhindered flow of thoughts and emotions that I valued the most. In the midst of hard effort, both were often shallow and fleeting. But there was a deeper sense that these flickers of memories and biological urges were collectively meaningful. They fell like raindrops from the clouds of my subconscious, polishing the granite walls of my identity into something beautiful.

  I pedaled until my odometer clicked to fifteen miles — which meant that to make it to the office by noon, I’d hav
e to exceed my pedaling average by two miles per hour. I looked away from the numbers because, in that moment, they were an unwanted distraction. The sun lifted over the jagged mountains, casting a white glare across Kachemak Bay. It was going to be a cold, blinding descent, and I wished I could suffer it over and over for the rest of the day, watching the sun crawl along the bottom of the southern horizon and fade too quickly from view.

  _____

  The December Treatment

  December 9, 2005

  Today was all about color, sugar and speed. I love it. While the good folks down in Austin, Texas, are digging out of an ice storm, I’m pacing trucks on my road bike — in Alaska, in December. Sometimes, life turns upside down and smiles at you.

  No one at the office wanted to work today. The publisher announced yesterday that we were having a pot luck and *no one* was allowed to bring anything but desserts. Even the girl who brought in Fuji apples the size of small pumpkins was frowned upon. So we stuffed our faces with cookies, brownies, pistachio pie — then, bloated and reeling from sugar shock, we pulled out all the Christmas decorations and started throwing tinsel everywhere. At about 1:30 p.m. I looked outside and could see a hint of sun showing through the rain clouds. And I knew a rare window had opened.

  I arrived home at 2 p.m., unhooked my road bike from the trainer I thought it would sit upon for at least three more months, walked it along the precarious ice sheet that my driveway has become, and went for a ride — a fast ride. After a month on the mountain bike slogging through the snow, I was coasting along pavement and sucking in warm breeze like it was suddenly spring. Everywhere colors emerged that have spent so long buried in hoarfrost: deep greens and yellows reflecting off what was left of the snow, blue and orange in the sky. The headwind out of the west was fierce but I rode as hard as I could, and felt like I was flying.

  Geoff joined me for what turned out to be the last half of my ride: down the Spit and around Kachemak Drive, for 17 miles. By the time we returned, just after 4 p.m., the sun was long gone. The clearing sky signaled the cold will return. Alas, it’s December, and there’s nothing that will stop it. But for a small window within winter’s icy grip, I had a 32-mile road ride on a 40-degree afternoon and almost believed it was spring.

  *****

  Winter’s long nights closed in like a curtain. By mid-December, the sun snoozed until well after 10 a.m., only to roll lazily just above the crest of the mountains before sinking back into darkness by 4 p.m. It reminded me of a shy cat, absent most of the time, occasionally peeking around the corners of doorways, and obstinately withholding affection. Even during daytime, sunlight was often dull and shrouded by gray clouds.

  The cement walls that surrounded my workspace effectively blocked what little daylight remained. There was one window at the front of the building, and the blinds were always drawn to “protect newsroom privacy.” (According to Jane, there were plenty of people in town with guns who did not want their names in the paper. At least with the blinds down they wouldn’t know where to aim.) Slits of sunlight sometimes escaped, drawing sad yellow lines across the floor. Still, I liked to watch sunbeams creep along the carpet. Sometimes I held my sweater-covered arms in their path, as though these dim rays could somehow provide the ultraviolet boost I craved.

  Carey made her annual escape to Hawaii and left me in charge of overseeing production of the Homer Tribune for two full weeks. Layton, Sean, Emily, and I were already operating on a tight margin of productivity. The holiday season meant more print ads, which in turn increased the number of newspaper pages, and thus increased the amount of space that the newsroom needed to fill with content. The additional duties tipped my workload from barely manageable to crushing. By the third day following our captain’s departure, it felt like the four of us were crowded against one side of a ship, rowing in circles, as Jane stood at the stern beating a drum and barking orders. My newfound fitness could not prevent me from withering under the pressure.

  On deadline day, I slumped out of bed at an unconscionable hour to ride my bike to work. I barely had time to use the bathroom during these two weeks, but if my job was going to force me to sit in a frigid office all day long, I was at least going to squeeze in a workout during the commute. It was 5 a.m. when I stepped out of my cold and dark cabin into the colder, darker morning. The sun wouldn’t come up for five more hours. A thin veil of moonlit clouds was strung across the sky. I pulled on my face mask and watched my own breath curl into silver wisps. A recent snap of subzero weather had broken; it was cold outside, but not deathly cold. Probably somewhere in the range of twenty degrees.

  I switched on my headlight and pedaled up the driveway. A “sizzling bacon” sound crackled from the bike’s studded tires, amplified by the morning’s otherwise complete silence. I rode past darkened windows and frost-coated cars, enjoying the distinction of being the only object in motion. Years earlier, when I was a student at the University of Utah, I worked part-time as a bagel baker. My shift started at 4 a.m. On the rare weekend morning that I actually went to bed before I had to be up again, I relished the sensation of arising to an abandoned world. My neighborhood was comprised of students and young families, and was characteristically chaotic during the day. The early-morning absence of activity gave it an apocalyptic atmosphere. The air was always cool, even in the summer, and I could drive through stop lights without worrying about consequences. If I felt so inclined, I thought, I could take off all my clothes and run naked through the streets, or climb a street lamp, or paint illustrations on the sidewalks. Who would stop me? At 4 a.m., the world belonged solely to me, and I imagined living as the last human on Earth. This sensation always filled me with guilty intrigue.

  In Alaska, amid the persistent darkness and cold of December, these hours became even more lonely. Alaskans tended to go into semi-hibernation in the winter, moving through the frozen world only long enough to complete the necessary functions of their lives. Sure, there were still gallery openings, basketball games, movies, and plays during the winter. People still went to work and occasionally, if the weather was nice, ventured outside to ski or push children around in sleds. But even the mid-afternoon hours were quiet during the winter, and the morning hours were downright ghostly.

  What would it really mean to be the last person alive? What would I do? Would I continue to pedal my bike along the deserted streets, searching for other people, scraps of food and some sense of continued purpose? If civilization came to a catastrophic end, most who remained would probably hunker down, build up protective fortresses, hoard provisions. Not me; I’d wander. As long as I stayed on the move, I would never have to feel alone, because I could always cling to hope that I’d eventually find something … anything. With a bicycle I could move freely. I wouldn’t have to worry about fuel, or the inevitable deterioration of roads and buildings. I wouldn’t be encumbered by technologies that no longer served a purpose. I would eat berries from the ground, drink water from the streams, and scavenge bike parts and food in the ruins of civilization. I would never stop riding, never stop searching.

  I smiled at the idea of a bicycle lifting me from the crushing loneliness of being the last person alive. What would a ride be like in that world? I imagined rolling past crumbling buildings and abandoned cars, along streets thick with ice and snow. As I visualized this apocalyptic world, I pedaled past an abandoned cabin with a toppled roof, a storage shack constructed of crumpled aluminum sheets, and two 1960s-era trucks half-buried in snow drifts. A thin husky darted across the road, stopping briefly to face my headlight with luminescent yellow eyes. A moose and her nearly full-grown calf also turned their glowing eyes on me. My imagination was only reflecting the very real destitution that was my Alaska neighborhood before dawn.

  The Tribune office was similarly dark and destitute first thing in the morning. I groped around for the light switch. Florescent bulbs flickered with a hypnotic hum. I took off my mittens and balaclava, and pulled
on typing gloves and a hat. Now I was outfitted for the arduous expedition of deadline day.

  First on the agenda was finishing the weekly calendar, as well as writing a preview of Homer High School’s production of The Nutcracker. The previous night, I went to a rehearsal and interviewed the teenage star and her teacher on the set. A cluster of kindergartners dressed in mouse costumes swarmed around us as the girl rattled off a rapid-fire description of the plot, as though I’d never before heard of The Nutcracker. Her teacher gushed about how amazing this year’s production would be, the best ever. I nodded and recorded the obvious sound bites, but kept my focus on the girl, whose wide eyes darted rapidly around the room as she faced me with a fixed smile.

  “Poor girl,” I thought. “She probably puts in hours every night rehearsing for this play, and wondering whether the time and stress is really worth a couple of bullet points on her college applications. Meanwhile, her school is charging fifteen dollars a ticket and funneling the proceeds into the general budget, where they’ll go toward new uniforms for the football team.”

  Still, I couldn’t blame her for pursing time-consuming extracurricular activities. I had after-school jobs during high school, and now I had little to show for the income I earned as a youth: photographs of a car I discarded years ago, a snowboard that collected dust in my closet, and a few great memories of concerts I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford. I too had a knack for overextending myself, trying so many different avenues of education that I never excelled at any one thing, and working in fast food for five dollars an hour. At least this ambitious young actress was helping create something meaningful, something that had value to her community — even if fifteen dollars was pretty steep for a seat at a high school play.