The blur of whiteness coddles the cold. Though the sun shines, and will soon enough set, I must walk with my face looking down. I study the carvings of wind over snow. The relief of crystals, drawn violently across drifts extending, has the grain pattern of wood. We walk out one mile. The light is turning ocher. My wrist grows numb from the wind working its way in between cuff and sleeve and skin and bone. All morning we discussed vacuum presses and glue lams; we want very badly to build our own furniture. This conversation continues now as we walk into the wind. It sounds to me as though I am talking into a tin can packed with goose down but somehow, Steve responds to me. Maybe it is the big, fur hat over the small, wool beanie muffled by the neck gaiter and hood that causes words to sound so flat and long.The building, that is the most aesthetic here, is the sauna. I don't really mean that, but in a a way, it is. It is modular. It is built of scrap plywood. It is small and tidy. It has a wooden interior with a small window and river rocks that sit in a stainless steel tray on top of the oil burning stove. There is a pleasing scent of oils: eucalyptus, lavender, and tea tree. The place is kind to the soul; warm and quiet and soft. Even the fueling of the day, tanks and drums, reminds me of a home- style farm chore. My work feels separate from the rest of camp's scientific duties. My tasks are both necessary and voluntary and that alone makes me happy. When I sit in the sauna I think about our friends and I think of home. I think about ways to save the world from ignorant, wasteful, car -dependent sprawl . I imagine building large, geometric solids-- perhaps out of wood--if not, at least, from toothpicks and gumdrops. Do we have any gumdrops?
This energy is strange. I am tinged with the melancholy that comes from being steeped in the constant hum of a generator, working out maybe a little too much, planning projects for home, and reading philosophy. I wish for the green grass of home and the wormy earth. I am pulled away, as if a leaning tree in strong winds, towards being home, far away from this see saw sphere of an arctic space station. But following what we know to be good advice isn't always as fun, or as interesting, as it is to go pounding through the challenges of life. Enduring the suffering makes good books.
The strongest medicine about this place is the reality of its isolation. Accepting this, working with this, casts an odd illumination over my being, welding together the euphoria of the ice cap's splendid uniqueness with the temperament of it's cold cold song, sung from so lonely a pair of frozen lungs that ever breathed on this earth, builds character.
Somehow, we are not of its world and we will not stay.
I go now to sit and listen to the colors of the sinking sun.
