Epic Solitude

by Katherine Keith

  “You may now kiss your bride,” Eric says.

  People around us all cheer.

  Dave lets go of my hand to remove the veil from my face. He leans in to kiss me, and I hear Alan say “Oh man …” as Dewey says “Shh.” Dave and I laugh as the world goes back to normal, locked in each other’s arms.

  The clapping and hollering interrupt us, and we grab hands again. We turn to our family.

  Cindy runs up to Dave in a big hug. “Hey, big brother!”

  Still holding Dave’s hand, I look at my mom and just laugh. It overjoys Mom and me at how Cindy adores Dave. Dave took Cindy under his wing and will do anything for her. As we take pictures, Alan pretends he is falling asleep. Such a kid (see fig. 27).

  After the ceremony, our camp neighbors Aggie and Diane host a potluck. Friends come from Kotzebue, bringing an amazing assortment of foods to share. The wedding cake has three tiers. When it’s time to cut it, I can’t resist the opportunity to smear frosting on Dave’s face. He gets me back by kissing my neck with his frosting-covered lips. Friends bellow in amusement. We dance through the evening as our host, Aggie, plays the fiddle. Dave and I make our escape, grateful for how our friends and family came together to find a sliver of joy in each other’s company. It is our wedding night. Dave and I hold each other tight, holding back grief and despair so it can’t ever rip us apart.

  Futility

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2002

  As a candle cannot burn without fire,

  so man cannot live without spiritual force.

  —Ramakrishna

  Family and friends leave over the next few days. The shock wears off, and I cross into a state of bottomless despair. People come and go from camp, which requires that I keep things together and try to appear strong. I smile at the appropriate times and engage in mandatory conversations going on around me. Friends bring food and news from around town to let us know they care. They can’t change things, but they understand loss and tragedy.

  I struggle to sit and listen to small talk. Chuck Schaeffer and Aggie Nelson come over to check on things at the house. Dave went to town with Alan for a couple of days, and I stay home to feed the animals. I make coffee and put out some baked bread to snack on. I can’t understand what they are saying anymore, and the small cabin walls cave in on me. I can’t breathe. I go outside to cold springtime air. I have to run. I have to find her. My womb spasms with pain, like I am being ripped in half. I can’t think of anything except our baby girl. Without winter gear, I stumble through the snow for a quarter of a mile to her grave site. I lie on the frozen ground beneath her wooden cross, wishing I could sink into the dirt and be with her again. My head scrambles, torturing me with shame and guilt, hoping to capture some significant item to cling on to. My thoughts turn to past unhealthy coping skills. Cutting into my skin might bring temporary emotional relief but won’t bring her back. My blood dripping on the snow will only remind me of her blood dripping out of her nose.

  After an hour, Chuck and Aggie accept that I am a rude host today. Chuck worries about my abrupt departure and searches for me. He finds me and picks me up off Madi’s tundra grave, freezing, and brings me inside.

  “You need to find something to latch onto in life. No matter what it is,” he says. “It might be temporary until you find a more sustainable reason to live. Find something.”

  I look out the windows to see the spring giving birth to new life all around us. I wish Madi could witness this. Trusting that Chuck knows something about this, I pick something. It can’t be me, so I choose Dave.

  Months pass by—months of sleepless nights and listless days. I pretend to be strong for Dave, who is my only hope. In Dave there is strength I can cling to. I experience happiness with Dave. Our love pulls me out of deep water, but I still struggle to keep my head above it. I want to become pregnant again. Each month, my period plunges me into a cycle of deep grief. I fixate on things that need work, but inside I am dead and inconsolable. One day, after we take a trip into Kotzebue, I ride on the back of our four-wheeler up to camp.

  I scream inside my head as loud as I can, “Help! Help me! Whatever god, spirit, or spirits are out there hanging out by me I need help!” I have made similar desperate pleas only a few times in my life. Such desperation often occurs before things turn around. I am ready.

  Hope

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2002

  To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

  To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

  To reach for another is to risk involvement.

  To expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

  To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd is to risk their ridicule.

  To love is to risk not being loved in return.

  To live is to risk dying.

  To hope is to risk despair.

  To try is to risk failure.

  But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

  People who risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing, are nothing.

  They may avoid suffering and sorrow;

  But they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, or live.

  Chained by their attitudes they are slaves;

  They have forfeited their freedom.

  Only a person who risks is free.

  —Journal entry, August 12, 1994

  Four months after Madi died, I gratefully learn I am pregnant. The suffering lessens slightly, and I can look toward the horizon now. This time will be different. I have lost my ignorant optimism. Shit happens. Life doesn’t always go on. Damned if I test fate with blinders on again. Some things are just beyond our control. Whether it be a random roulette wheel or a master plan larger than we can conceive of. We cannot control everything; we just need to do the best we can.

  Instincts tell me our baby is another girl, and I know what I want her name to be. I have to creative about how I present her name to Dave and Alan so I am not overruled. I create a homework assignment for Alan on early women aviators and, surprise, Alan selects to write a report on Amelia Earhart.

  “Wow, Alan. Wouldn’t that make a great name for your sister, assuming the baby is a girl?” I ask.

  “Yeah, that would be awesome. She’ll be famous. All the Amelias I know, Amelia Bedelia and Amelia Earhart, are famous.”

  I agree.

  “Amelia is a strong name for a strong gal,” Dave chimes in, listening to our conversation.

  Amelia Keith it is.

  We move into the new house and work hard to finish it before our new baby arrives. She is a great incentive. I listen when Dave suggests I sit down, take a break, or drink water. We live in a white wall tent inside the log-frame house. My sister, Cassie, comes up for the summer to learn about Alaska, and she has to rough it. No running water, gas lanterns, and cold nights. Cassie is fourteen-years-old and a total pleasure to have around. Fun-loving and eager, my sister and I have a lot in common. Cassie learns how to drive the four-wheeler, shoot a gun, chop wood, and other useful Alaska skills. Having my sister by my side keeps the summer positive as we build new memories together. After being away from each other for a few years, it is wonderful to build up a connection with her again.

  Our house has a cluttered, lived-in feel while we build around us. Dave builds me a desk using some lumber he milled and stained with linseed oil. I have our camp phone on it, along with an oil lantern for late-night work when the generator is off. My Federal Firearms License paperwork has a home on the makeshift shelves. Alan can sit by me on an old couch, with his camouflage mosquito-net jacket, and do his homework. We have a big white tarp hanging down from the ceiling to serve as a shower curtain. A black water trough serves as the basin, and Dave rigs up a bucket with a spout on it for the hot water we heat on the stove. Dave wires a battery-charging station so that when the generator is on, we can charge the twelve-volt batteries. When the generator is off, these batteries wil
l run our fan and our VHF and AM/FM radios.

  Freeze-up comes and goes. I mark the weeks of the pregnancy by keeping close tabs on my “Pregnancy Week by Week” book. November, December, and January creep along. The darkness permeates our lives and dictates our activities. I bake like crazy—nothing wrong with baking when you’re pregnant—and have a sale every couple of weeks, trying to save up money. When not busy on the house or baking, our ever-growing zoo also keeps me preoccupied. We now have two Icelandic horses named Hesta and Alvon, a milking goat named Buttercup, two turkeys, five ducks, twenty-five chickens, seven dogs, and one cat (see fig. 28).

  I have a fascination with the Arctic sky, whose drastic mood swings match my own—one hour dark and glum, the next full of angelic rays, clouds, stars—the palette of colors more poetic and sublime than the passes of the Sierra Nevada. I will teach our baby all about the sky. Many things come and go in life. The sky reminds us there are great works in the making. We only need to stop, watch, and wonder. We can create miracles. If our girl can look up and know she is a part of something bigger than herself and feel connected, we will accomplish our job as parents.

  As my due date draws near, I swing between pessimism and optimism, dread and hope, excitement and terror. I visit my family in Minneapolis for the last two months of pregnancy. On the one-year anniversary of Madi’s death, I am eight months pregnant and shopping for newborn clothes. I skip themes that Madi wore such as Winnie-the-Pooh and the one-year-old clothes she should be wearing.

  Dave and Alan join me in Minnesota, where Amelia arrives two weeks early. In my vulnerability, the delivery at Regions Hospital scares me. I cannot protect her. I swear I will recognize the preciousness of life and its fragility.

  Amelia arrives on March 22, 2003. The minute I see Amelia, her gorgeous innocence erases any outstanding fears. I stare at her face as she thoughtfully takes in the world around her. Her bright-red hair bespeaks her soul’s intention to make its unique mark on this world. A twinkle in her eye hints at a sense of humor and wit, while her intense gaze indicates her great compassion and empathy. Tiny soft hands reach up to touch my cheek, and my heart melts. She is mine and I am hers. Dave and Alan each take their turn getting to know precious baby Amelia. For once, Alan is stunned into silence and doesn’t make a single joke. Who knows what those two are communicating about? He is probably psychically uploading Archie comic books to her brain.

  In April, after Amelia is a few weeks old, we begin the trip back to Alaska. Once in Kotzebue, we need to take Amelia back home on a snow machine under my parka. She is now the same age as Madi. Dave drives, and Amelia and I are in a sled, where I can watch her every second. Once home, the woodstove heat radiates, thawing the frozen, still-uncompleted log cabin.

  The next six months go by in blissful harmony, and we fall into a routine as a whole family—at least the four of us (see figs. 29 and 30).

  Footprints

  Cape Espenberg, Alaska | 2003

  The purple daisy

  Soaking in the morning’s sun

  Welcomes my spirit.

  Journal entry, August 2, 1999

  That summer, Dave, Alan, Amelia, and I take a two-week boat trip to look for mammoth ivory along the bluffs and rivers between Kotzebue and Shishmaref. Dave’s parents taught at the Shishmaref school for many years, so Dave is familiar with the land and people (see fig. 31).

  Shishmaref is a long way by boat—ninety miles southwest of Kotzebue—but we take the scenic route. We gather abundant supplies as we travel with our boisterous six-month-old. In Kotzebue, we stop at Alaska Commercial for groceries and Crowley for two drums of gasoline and oil for the outboard.

  We pass through the channel to get around the shallow waters and sandbars and head southeast, following the bluffs of the Baldwin Peninsula, where Kotzebue residents travel with four-wheelers to hunt for finds. The oversearched bluffs hold little interest for us in our quest for mammoth ivory, but this is a great place to walk along the beach. The bluffs, sixty feet tall, generate a rich organic-compost smell from thawing permafrost. Mammoth ivory has a color like permafrost mud and is shaped like a tree root. We examine the bluff base, beach, and shallows for fallen tusks. Dave’s more experienced eye discredits my visual findings.

  Getting back in the boat, we continue southeast towards Chamisso Island and Eschscholtz Bay. Chamisso is a hidden treasure of northwest Alaska. A tiny natural reserve, two miles long and less than a quarter mile wide, this island, along with the nearby Puffin Island, are home to thousands of nesting birds, including kittiwakes, murres, and of course, puffins. This birder’s paradise swarms with birds during certain times of year. As we go around the island, the sandy bird haven stuns me. Marine mammals abound. Three porpoises follow alongside and play with our boat for five miles. These waters are also known to have orca and belugas. There are tents set up on the beach—people enjoying the designated wilderness area. We decide not to stop because our destination lies inside Eschscholtz Bay, along the beaches across from Elephant Point.

  Eschscholtz Bay itself is shallow, and we cannot get closer than half a mile from the beach. During July this bay is a traditional beluga hunting ground for the people of Buckland, Deering, and nearby villages. Back in the last ice age, Elephant Point was a herding ground for the mastodons. Only a hundred years ago, it was a reindeer herding ground. Material washes away from Elephant Point and ends up on the northern side of the bay. We anchor the boat out in calm water. Walking half a mile to the beach doesn’t pose too big a challenge, except that I need to wear clunky hip waders and carry Amelia on my back in knee-deep water.

  Arctic summers can be cold, so I grab sufficiently warm gear and jump over the boat into knee-deep water. I put on my leather shoulder holster with my titanium .38 Special +P. This lightweight revolver affords a level of protection in case any unexpected guests visit. I put a light metal-frame baby carrier on my back, and Dave leans over to put a happy, somewhat sleepy, Amelia in her carrier. I test out the ocean bottom to determine how mucky it will be. Dave and Alan join me with their rucksacks on. Dave is in charge of the rifle because this is an area known for bears. Alan is in charge of snacks. We take about thirty minutes to slog our way in. The wide beaches have dark sand. I walk with my head down and Amelia in tow, beachcombing my way to the east. Dave and Alan do the same, although Alan seems more interested in skipping rocks. I plan to search for hours. A pervasive sense of ancient history overwhelms me as I notice all the fossilized bones and mineralized ivory chips that have broken down over thousands of years. Some bones are from miniature horses and saber-toothed cats. A friend of ours found a saber-toothed cat skull close to our current location. Lost in imagination, I wander (see fig. 32).

  Amelia works up an appetite and breaks me out of my reverie. I stop to nurse her. I lay down a blanket for her to roll around on the beach. Together we scour the area surrounding the blanket. Amelia eats a few fossils. We find an object pointing up out of the sand about four inches. Amelia and I dig it out and pry it free. We wash it with seawater and discover a fossilized walrus tusk—our first find. We keep searching and discover a plethora of cool mammoth-ivory pieces. Dave finds a massive mammoth tooth. These are beautiful pieces, even intact, but local carvers make incredible jewelry with them. The color patterns are fascinating.

  We need to travel before the calm weather disappears. We eat a lunch of sandwiches, nuts, cheese, and water. A portable cook stove heats water for a hot cup of French press coffee with beans from D&M Coffee in Ellensburg, Washington.

  We set off again in search of a protected harbor for the boat. With twenty-four hours of daylight, it’s easy to push ourselves into the very early hours of the morning. Our destination is a shelter cabin at the mouth of the Kiwalik River. Stopping once along the way to pick up driftwood for a fire, we park the boat for the night and get out to explore an old dredge parked here long ago during the gold rush, when Candle was a thriving town of twenty thous
and people.

  The community of Kiwalik used to support mining operations in Candle. They have since abandoned it, and time has broken the old buildings down, giving it a strong ghost town vibe. Nine miles up the river is the old mining town of Candle, which has several current dwellings and a runway. In 1908 Candle served as a turnaround for the All Alaska Sweepstakes, the first major dog mushing competition.

  We stay at the shelter cabin for the night. Dave makes a fire inside the shelter cabin and brings in our gear. With Amelia’s help, I cook up dinner. Alan entertains himself by exploring the area. Exhausted, we fall asleep. Early that morning, nature calls. I walk outside to find that the vastness and stillness strikes a chord of peace. For breakfast, we make hot water for the oatmeal before continuing west twenty-five miles to the village of Deering.

  Deering is a coastal community on the mouth of the Inmachuk River, with a population of around 130 people. Nearby Cape Deceit, two miles out of town, provides a stunning backdrop for the village and serves as a nesting area for thousands of birds.

  We continue toward Shishmaref. We stop to admire the bluffs and stunning rookery of Cape Deceit. Puffins and murres circle us everywhere. After some birding with binoculars, we take the boat forty miles northwest to Cape Espenberg. Cape Espenberg boasts of being one of the earliest Iñupiat settlements in western Alaska. Expecting a three-hour boat ride, we hope to get across Kotzebue Sound before the water gets rough. Southeast winds pick up late in the day. An hour into our ride, swells are large and the sea gets choppy.

  “Baby, can you please take the wheel?” Dave asks, calm as ever. “I’d like to secure our gear.”

  My body comes alive and alert in the rough water.

  Alan peaks his head out of the front of the boat, where he was napping. “How is she sleeping?”

  I look at Amelia tucked and wrapped up like a burrito in her converted boat seat. To my shock, she has fallen asleep in the now jarring ride (see fig. 33).