Half a year on the ice

21 April 2024

I get tired of the strain.  There are things inside me that I cannot easily put to words.  I don’t think words are my first language.  Paragraphs have never been easy.  As if trying to place a face – you flip through all the faces in your brain, looking for a match, and eventually place it.  When I write, I never find the match, usually going with something that resembles what I’m trying to express.  So I’ll try something new to ease the burden and let it rip:

Six months on the ice.  I am still thawing out.  Supervising people is no easy task.  I saw tears of appreciation and I saw tears of sadness and confusion.  We had weeks of laughter and we had weeks of tension.  I learned a lot to take forward.  Boundaries are important.  Expectations are dangerous.  Other people are not like me.  Some things need to be taught. 

Six months is a long time.  During the second half of the season, I felt like Marty McFly in Back to the Future.  When he’s at risk of altering the future, the family photograph shows that’s disappearing.  I was disappearing from the lives of the unfrozen.  They were getting too accustomed to me not being around.  We have Starlink now but a time change with some communication subtleties, I am just out of reach. 

There is still magic on the ice.  There were times when I felt like I was actually doing a good job in my new role.  Keeping scientists safe, laughing with my team, educating the station. Throughout the season, I didn’t know if I could return to the role.  By the end, however, too much had been invested to walk away.  There are also enough things to be optimistic regarding next season, so I am bound to return in September. 

So now I am back amongst the world of green, trying to fit in a year’s worth of non-Antarctica things into what feels like just a matter of days.  There’s more motivation to get to certain life events when I know I won’t be able to do so for what will be 5 months this time.  And so, I have yet to spend a full week at home since I landed back in Massachusetts. 

At home, I have joined what is especially my father’s habit of heading outside for the last few hours before sunset, though he more likely frames his timing in regard to sitting down for the evening news.  Long feeling like I haven’t been doing enough to help out when I am home for these quick transitions, I have been working on the trees.  Each afternoon to evening, when the weather cooperates, I find myself discovering new characters of the land.  I’ve taken to walking around the property with my 12 foot pole saw, taking off all the dead limbs within reach.  I find it quite satisfying and similar in both pre-distraction and post-satisfaction to pruning nose hairs.  The nose hairs of the pine forests just grow outward instead of inward.  One of the first few nights, after making my rounds, I sat in an Adirondack chair overlooking much of the property.  I found a peace, as the sun went down, that I hadn’t felt in a while. 

The stress of the ice has taken some time to work its way out of my body.  For a good month, I felt like I was hunched over, as if curling up would lessen my body’s surface area.  But coming back has felt like what I imagine astronauts have felt like when returning from six months off the planet.  Perhaps that feeling of rebirth, back into the world of green, back into people’s lives, back into a world where I have some control over my schedule, is what I still enjoy.  But it also holds a certain weight.  It perhaps makes me more appreciative of the little things, having felt like I was “off the planet” for a bit.  Back to life.  The family picture restored. 

The astronaut application is in.  By a mistake of mine just before submission, I might have ended my chances before the even began by writing too many words on one required timed essay, but I’ll just have to take it as it comes.  I’m still hoping for an interview but last time there were 12,000 applicants for 10 spots or so.  Chances are slim.  I’d be the oldest astronaut ever selected by one year.  I won’t know anything until around September, when my references might get checked. 

I still feel in a good spot regarding my future.  Either I become an astronaut or I don’t!  If I don’t, I can continue my own flying, sailing and mountain expeditions and adventures.  I can continue my own art.  At the very least, it’ll nice to have some reasonable clarity one way or the other.  The end of an era.  At points along the way, I thought I should throw a party.  It’s either a party for becoming an astronaut or a party for not becoming an astronaut.  I am grateful for so much support and encouragement in this pursuit, if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be sorry I won’t be able to invite everyone to a launch.