Two weeks ago, my traveling pants arrived in the mail from Anchorage. I’d forgotten them on a recent trip to visit my mother. Whenever I stay at my brother’s house, I always leave something behind. Nothing of value, a blow dryer, (twice, I think) a journal with notes about my mother’s care, and then my pants. It always takes my brother a long time to return my orphans: he works full time, is writing his thesis, and raising three children. And, after all, he’s not the one who forgot them.
I like to travel. From the time I was in elementary school, I plotted a way to escape from Anchorage. Lying on the ground in my puffy, brown snowsuit making snow angels, I seached the starry sky unobscured by urban lights and thought about other children gazing at the north star from somewhere in the contiguous states. I felt isolated, cut off, and never quite at ease. I longed to live in a state where day and night were balanced, and the thermometer didn’t creep below zero for weeks at a time.
It took me years to figure out how to leave. For a long time, the reasons I couldn’t outweighed the reasons I could, until one day, the scales shifted. I’ve lived in the Seattle area for almost twenty years, now. My roots are in Alaska, my home is here, and my soul is somewhere in between. I’m drawn to the gravel road that my school bus traveled on the east side of Anchorage, more compact now. Hidden behind spruce and birch trees, log houses belonging to my classmates still stand. I watch for moose, especially when the snow is deep. I never stay for very long, always eager to return home, but not entirely sure where it is: when I’m in Seattle, I’m from Alaska; when I’m in Alaska, I’m from Seattle. As I pack to leave my brothers house, I check under the bed, peer into the bathroom vanity, and open the closets, because I always leave something behind. But I never discover what it is until I’m home.
