Our station is sleep-addled today, a community-wide malaise of exhaustion and the tired mind. The vast majority of us were woken at 5 AM when a fire alarm went off in the Rodwell, the building that provides our water supply. The Rodwell, an out building, is several hundred yards from station, so a crowd of bleary-eyed folk dressed and hustled to respond. It was -80 F, with a 12 knot wind.

In the end, there was no major surprise, just a small footnote in our response to any alarm as a serious one. A fan in a heater had gone out, allowing the heating element to warm the air directly below a heat sensor, rather than dispersing it throughout the room. All told, the response, stand-down, and investigation took little more than thirty minutes. As for getting back to sleep, however…

Conversations today represent the lost dream-time. Words are flipped, brains are scattered, and trains of thought rumble in anything but a straight line. It makes for an interesting (and laughable) series of personal interactions, light-hearted moments, and deep thoughts - the best parts of sleep deprivation.

It’s exhaustion like this that makes it difficult to maintain relationships with friends and family off-continent. Our community, insular in nature, is an easy out to turn to. When the day is over, dumping down in front of a movie with several others makes an easy escape. We stay entertained in our own ways, from modern media to evenings of pub trivia, or the upcoming race (BF5K) and concert (Polestock ‘08) this weekend. We provide an atmosphere of ambivalence or creativity as needed.

That being said, when I return to my room tired and satisfied (or at least tired), it becomes monumental to tackle the timezone difference, contextual distance, and mental fatigue in the efforts to contact back home. Or at least that’s how it feels.

When living in Duluth this past year, I’m not convinced that I was any better at communicating with my friends and family than I am now. The distractions, however, seemed more wordly, seemed to keep me in a sense that I was more in touch with those a few hundred miles distant than I was.

Here, with no one a few hundred miles distant and nearly all interactions created within our crowd of sixty, it becomes a poignant note when you remember who you haven’t spoken with in a few months or written to lately. It is placed mostly on your own time and ability to reach out, because technology makes it difficult to reach in. My phone, barring emergencies, is effectively one-way.

What does all this resolve out to? Possibly a self-guilt trip, but an expansion on one of the many things that we deal with as loyal Antarcticans. It’s an environment where challenging oneself takes a constant willful walk, where love and friendship seemingly happen easy, but take time and care for true depth, and where great perseverance and presence is required to stay fast to friendships 8000 miles away.

Most people I’ve known who have wintered in the past have a limit, a wall that they hit when it comes to this experience. After a season, several, a career, eventually there is no more challenge or dreams dig in toward another existence. Watching the pattern of friends’ ebb and flow, I used to think it related to this continent. While it does, in some manner, I’m finding that it is more internal - a human imperative.

For some of my friends, the traveling life is coming to a close, the modern hobo way losing appeal to larger, more singular pursuits. Some, like Dane, seek a path with goals that will leave a mark on this planet. Others, like Jeff, are simply ready to settle for a bit and try something else. There’s also holding to one place and maintaining a hold on wonder. It catches me every time someone I know chooses to dream more solidly, more static-like in place or pursuit, prepared for a long dream, because I do not yet know that feeling. I’ve tried it, quite unsuccessfully, and instead end up happy here.

Here, where outside is a deep breath unlike anywhere else, and above me, the sky dances.

I crave aspects of the long moment, but I don’t yet see my path there. I wonder if the guilt I wear in the distance between conversations looks to be assuaged in a long-settled future, in a place where friends can be gathered for a lifetime instead of the simple present. Or is building the simple present simply enough?

Perhaps in increments of year-long contracts and months-long dreams I’ll grow my way in to the multitude of years. In the mean, I will treasure those I meet, know, and love. In the mean, I’ll listen to the ether and thank those who understand, those who’s smiles grow no dimmer by time or distance.

And always, I’ll be learning…