A Day in the Life of Chaos

They call Alaska the Land of the Midnight Sun.  If you are not from Alaska you may not understand but this is largely derived from the fact that long about the end of June there is about as much light at midnight as there is mid-day.  Eventually somewhere around 2 or 3 in the morning it gets kind of dim but never really dark.  Alaska is a land of absolutes in many ways and while the Midnight Sun sounds romantic the opposite that occurs long around Mid-December is Eternal Darkness.  During that time the Midnight Sun becomes the Midnight Moon.  In winter you pretty much live in darkness because the only day light is from about 9am to 3pm and during that time you are likely in school or working.   The contrast makes half of the year stand out so much more vividly in my mind than the other half.  When I look back into the deep corners of my mind the vast majority of memories that bubble to the surface occurred in the summer.  Summer in Alaska is a kind of orgasm of life.  To escape t

In life there are many things we do in seeming futility.  It might be trying to look younger, arguing with a Republican or explaining evolution to a creationist.  Perhaps also on the list should be gardening in Alaska.   There is some kind of genetic human trait likely explained by the evolution noted above that guides many human beings into the desire to grow.  This can manifest itself in many different ways.  It might be a simple flower or the eternal spring desire to plant things all around ones hous e that despite our best intentions, will largely be dead by the following year.  That said for a few months we will relish the feeling of our hands in the soil and the vivid colors of the natural world around us.  We will love the hunt for the perfect plant and how, like a freshly cut bouquet of flowers, it will make our world beautiful for a few fleeting moments.  At that point, the cycle will start all over again.  Maybe it is a response to darkness and the cold perception of ve

I am not sure why as we grow older and try to remember the past often our thoughts drift to our youngest age.  Perhaps it is our own psyche recognizing the importance in those formative years on how we came to know the world.  Maybe it was the most interesting part of our lives.  Perhaps it is a yearning for lost innocence.  Whatever the reason I found myself today harkening back to memories of one of the most brutal locations of a young child’s life, the playground.   For a young child the playground embodies liberation, freedom, friendship and hierarchy.  It also is an arena where it is kill or be killed.  It is a regulated pandemonium when adult supervision is minimized and like Lord of the Flies children express their dominance over the others.  It can be in games, submission or actions of deprecation.  I can still recall Todd Mueller or was it Bobby Andresen pinching my neck and forcing me to bow while they said “Bauer, bow to the emperor.” I learned early on that a key to s

4071 MacINNES St. Anchorage, AK - 1969 Somewhere around my 13th year of life my parents made the determination that they wanted to create their own empire.  Okay, I admit that sounds a bit dramatic.  In truth they decided that they wanted to construct their own house.  My stepfather was a gifted architect and I suppose for him the house we were living in was not his own.  Divorced couples often feel this way.    A second spouse (my stepfather) moving in to the realm of a previous one always feels a bit awkward I suppose.  Or maybe it was the fact that my father who was a creative planner, had simply run out of options to recreate the interior of our old house.  This was despite a number of amazing reconstructions.  He had built wooden shelves ingeniously constructed in the kitchen, basement and my bedroom.  His crowning and in many ways most interesting achievement was the creation of a giant aviary built over the open two story entry way to the house.  The space was an enormous

The first time I remember confronting death was as a child.  My mother took me to visit my paternal grandmother and grandfather in a Los Angeles suburb.  It was the kind of place that the original boom California generation moved to as a relief for what central Los Angeles had become. I was twelve years old and my memories of my grandfather were limited as we had moved north to Alaska when I was two years old.  I had only seen him a couple of times since then and those memories were clouded in the fog of early youth.  Memories colored by photographs that likely don’t recall but simply recreate a memory that had left the mind or been buried within its deep recesses.    My grandfather was debilitated.  He sat in his naugahyde recliner with a blanket wrapped around him watching reruns of Bonanza and Big Valley.  He was suffering from brain cancer and his time was limited but when you are young, and have no concept of death, time seems to have little finality.  For a young mind, Gra