Silver Seas and Grey Skies – [Sitka 07/06/2011]

It’s raining in Sitka. Which is no big surprise, it always rains in Sitka. The water from the sky mixes with the water from the sea and creates a misty silver haze that makes the sea and sky look all of a piece. A sheet of shifting mercury that supports the rich green of the spruce stands and the bases of the mountains as if they spring directly from the water without bothering to take root in land.

There are houses on those little islands outside of town, I can see them sliding past my office window as we depart for the day – headed onwards to Ketchikan. I wonder what it would be like to live in one of those little houses – some of which are held up by stilts, teetering as if it’s sheer willpower that keeps them from toppling into the water below.  As the ship swings around the vista outside my window changes, as if it’s the landscape out there that’s moving and we’re the ones standing still – like one of those 180 movie theatres that used to be so popular : “see the world in glorious circle-vision”. As if we are all inside a child’s musical snow globe, spinning slowly around as tiny fingers turn the key at the base.

It reminds me that we have a very tenuous hold on Alaska. Alaska allows us to be here – to etch out our existence among the wolves and the rain. In fact…I think Alaska would hardly notice if we simply disappeared…