Our Surroundings Bond Us

Thanks everyone for your comments and email—I have been able to read about two. Connectivity here at Bonney is just not happening. I have only been able to see my inbox twice since I got here. Nevertheless, I will try to follow up on my previous post, and at first opportunity I have two videos ready to show.

I am feeling quite sentimental about this whole experience–the people I’ve met, the soft, ever-shifting sunlight playing across the wide slopes, the drastically shorter day–it is adding up to a drama. Crunching through the dirt I realized we are halfway through the extended season. I am trying to relax and take the long view, as each story and vantage will last only once.

Last night Cliff, Eric and I hiked up the steep slope behind camp that leads to the Zen Garden, a field of wind-shaped boulders spaced across a wide, flat expanse of volcanic soil, a unique combination of geology even to the Dry Valleys that gives the impression it was human-made—little black and red pebbles raked smoothly around each rock, giving these humongous boulders the presence of art, with the added sublimity of having been started millions of years ago, still quite unfinished. We started hiking around 10 p.m. The sun had set, but our hour-long sojourn was in a photo-friendly twilight. With no wind, the only sounds were our feet crunching across and the occasional comment of wonder.

Back in the jamesway, lights on and windows nearly black, we sipped the last of a bottle of whiskey and talked about how special it was to see Antarctica in these conditions, a first for everyone in the Valleys. Eric made a comment that crystallized my thought from the last post—we were talking about how insane it was that we found a seal skeleton up in the Zen Garden, at least one thousand feet above the valley floor. That is a hoofer of a hike for a human much less a fat seal flipping along. Then Cliff and Eric were trading polar bear stories. The polar bear is an animal presence to be feared of course, but as a counterpoint to Antarctica, you need only “worry” about the weather when you step outside, which can offer comfort in a way by eliminating all other wilderness threats. He said something like, “If I was walking back to my tent tonight and a skua flew by, it would TOTALLY freak me out.”

When a whale or a deer enters the boundaries of NYC, a similar freak-out happens. Here as there, humans are all there are, and we get used to taking comfort from this fact. A striking similarly that I surprisingly did not recognize from afar. No matter how vast or wild a place, your mind resets itself to who is around before it cares what is around. This thought struck me as I walked in the dimness back up to my tent. How we don’t have a choice. We organize our thoughts around each other, and our surroundings bond us.