Small moments of serendipity find me occasionally.

Tonight, I had a broiling contention and perspective on humanity and a need to find words with which to share it. I tend to procrastinate before writing, to clean my room, read another’s words, make a phone call, watch tv… Anything but do what I intend, anything to put off something that I know will be good for me. I haven’t yet figured that one out.

In the midst of the procrastination, however, I ran across someone who stated it so eloquently, all I can do is point you in her direction. You’d best listen to the song too.

Here.

Posted by noblehobo at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My friends are an adventurous bunch, all told. Their lives run the gamut from the pragmatic to the fantastic, from raising children outside the status quo to building a business, from forging a path as a graphic design provocateur to mapping the chemistry of the human mind, from hiking the highest mountain passes in Nepal to volunteering time and sweat in Guatemala, from photographic projects in the midst of fruition to writing best-selling novels…

Some that I know see my life as an outlandish adventure as well, they place me in an ‘other’ category reserved for whimsical, questioning, and admiring looks. I see myself in a group of peers, tangling a path that is distinct but not so unique in its encounters. We’re all still a part of the human condition, we all explore learning to be human.

Here, in the midst of the travelers, the artists, the generalists and the roustabouts that collect in Antarctic jobs, here dreams are traded as shared past or longed for future. Fears are parlayed as we look to the next pursuit that will humble us, leave us laughing, astounded, tired, and happy. Anything but bored.

This is a tame place in some regards - the daily moments tend toward the mundane - the breathtaking spread out widely over the year. Still, we exist in such a unique way - a morphing, conversing, cavorting mass of family, bonded by isolation and shared experience. The mundane offers us the opportunity to trade our stories and pursuits, to gather our dreams for the future from the great diaspora of them here.

For me, it’s too early to dream in specifics - we’ve much of our season (over five months) yet to pass. On the other hand, dreaming wide, in possibilities - that I can excel at.

The dreaming breaks down into phases. There are aspects of post-ice travel, of the unknown in the next year and my next job, and of the much larger unknown of the rest of life. The short-term, the travel, is easy.

After leaving the ice I’ll have about a month and a half to tool around before a return home for Christmas. Time in New Zealand is a given being we are dropped off in that paradise. I know there will be hiking, beaches, an attempt at surfing, biking, and general lounge-about laziness but the specific trails and ocean-sides are yet to unfold. I’d like to grab a trip to Hawaii as well, an easy stop off for the way home.

As for the next year, for the next several, I’ve a few different ideas tossing around in the dream fog. Many of the ideas were born here at the South Pole through the spark of inspiration brought by those mentioned above. Many come from friends stateside, some from books, some from random encounters. All of the ideas are stewing, boiling in broth that guarantees something interesting ought come out.

More on that tomorrow. For now, sleep.

For a slice of life here though, Heidi does a great job of describing a barbecue that our Heavy Shop crew threw together this past weekend. In this chunk of the world, that means grilling at -80 F.

Posted by noblehobo at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I spent some time outside today (a rarity for my job), walking about a mile to an outlying building to get some information from a few pieces of equipment.

I remember days when the entire state of Minnesota shutdown due to cold and wind (-20 to -40 F temps and a windchill of -50 to -80 F). All schools were closed, all government funded jobs, and many private schools and jobs as well. The highways closed (due to the wind and drifting) and in general everything shut down tight for a couple of days.

Short the joy of getting out of school, I remember griping at the bitter cold that day. My walk this afternoon? It was set to a wind chill of -120 F and an ambient temp of -80 F. All the more proof that if you prepare for a situation correctly, it’s a non-issue. I was toasty warm.

Dressing up for these temps leaves me feeling like an astronaut - several layers underneath, followed by puffy down coats and a face so covered that only a space slightly smaller than your eyes is open. You’ve no peripheral vision and end up having to bend at the waist to see your feet when going down stairs. Sound is muffled by the layers and by your own breathing and glasses and goggles are nearly impossible to use without fogging up.

With the wind kicking heavy and the moon obscured by clouds, the drifts are a surprising part of walking - as in into them or off of them with little or no notice. If we could see each other in the dark outside, we would all be stumbling. For a good chunk of time, with the blowing snow and lack of light, I could only see one or two of the flags from our flag lines running in either direction. The station proper disappeared quickly from view.

Amazingly enough, in the dark, with next to no visibility, in the coldest temperatures I have yet encountered, on a walk alone to empty buildings, hundreds of miles from no where (and our station hidden from view), I was comfortable and calm. It was the moon that scared the crap out of me.

Caught from the (mostly covered) corner of my eye, its bright light in a temporary cloud break had me do a double take and a jump. I paused after that, to catch my breath. Looking around, even though the horizon was blurred, I took in the view. The stars above me were brilliant, the Southern Lights were dancing faintly overhead, and the snow, moving across the dunes and gathered from the coast hundreds of miles away, was blowing fierce patterns beneath the moon.

I could gripe, could complain about our barren, cold, dark, wasteland of a home, but to do that? I’d be forsaking its true worth. I would be blind while still seeing.

Posted by noblehobo at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sam Elliot once told me,
in a dream,
that I didn’t know how to use a rifle.
Cowboy knowledge, solid and assured,
that cut to the quick.
Now I, mythological to self,
keep saying
that I don’t know how to love.
Except that I’m not a cowboy
and can’t grow that mean a mustache
nor wield a rifle.
So how, then, to love?

Posted by noblehobo at 01:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We have a good deal of time available to us here. While we work (job dependent) anywhere from fifty-four to eighty hours a week, we are able to skip many of the time-consuming portions of life off-continent. There is no commute greater than a half-mile walk (most are no greater than a couple hundred feet), meals are prepared and cooked for us, cleaning is done weekly as part of the work day, we have no dependents immediately with us, and our personal possessions to care for are few.

Barring emergencies and broken equipment, when we finish up with work, we are immediately done and on our own recognizance sans responsibilities. This leaves plenty of time to think.

Add a ratio of ten women to fifty men in the winter isolation, and it becomes easy to not lose time to dating or the building of a relationship.

Casual dating is weighed differently here as we are all working and living shoulder to shoulder for the next six months. Relationships are similar. Romance moves at a curious speed over the winter, often more carefully than it does stateside, and definitely not in the hormone-fueled, camp counselor drama style of the summer season. Not everyone acts in this regard, but stable friendships carry more weight than casual risk.

Sans dating and/or love, however, and with the time available that we have, it becomes easy to step into the past and look at former lovers, to analyze and theorize, to play the “where did I go wrong” game. When I slip into that mindset, it never ceases to amaze me how different not only I am, but how different my former partners are. It’s intriguing to look at their lives (those whom I’ve stayed in touch with) and where our paths diverged to where they are now.

There have been scars, healed now into interesting characters, and marks of the good kind, those that leave you stronger, more wise, more gentle and patient. There are moments of all manner that still hold a laugh, a wicked smile, or wincing pain. There are thoughts which lead to phone calls and the simple art of sharing that which you still can, of sharing the lives and memories you built together, and the feeling, unlike any other, the mix of respect, distance, nostalgia, lust, regret, and love all tied into the last few seconds before hanging up the phone.

There is silence too, of the nature needed to move beyond difficulties not worth overcoming, hard-fought lessons in forgive and forget, with the former still a work in progress. A silence more difficult than the myriad emotions left in friends turned lovers turned friends. A path not easy but one which the feet and the gut know is the right direction.

So what’s the point of all of this esoteric rambling? Just that of looking back, of remembering and smiling at all the good and all the bad and the fact that I’m still here, still capable of love and hope, still laughing, and still dancing (any takers?). That of gratitude, for those I’ve been able to share the closest of human connection with, for those I still love, and for all the parts of the man that I am now that come from my past.

We certainly weren’t perfect, we certainly didn’t last, but we wrote our own unique story, left our marks on each other, and left our marks on the world.

And that is a thought that I can sleep on.

Posted by noblehobo at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A distinct memory: reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey for the first time, drinking in the words that described what I had, where I was, resting in the sun, filtered through the boughs of massive pines, laying on the stump of an ancient Sequoia, fifteen feet off the ground, catching wisps of the breeze carried down from the mountain pass above.

Not too long now and I’ll hit my twenty-ninth year. I’ve learned a great deal in my walk on this Earth but nothing so prevalent as this - that there is so little that I do know, that there is much more to understand, much more knowledge to gather and hold, and to walk in humble awe of that fact.

Posted by noblehobo at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life here can be monotonous in the extreme, an endless series of days similar to the previous, surrounded by the same people as the day before, walking the same hallways, all exacerbated by the isolation preventing change.

Life can be that, if you let it.

Or you can laugh as those around you join in the goofy, bizarre pursuits to keep life here interesting. You can find change in watching a movie in a different building, admire the surroundings (and the shadows) beneath the brilliant light of a full moon, dig deep in old memories, make art, make conversation… It is all a matter of perspective. If you can stay entertained here, live off of your own intellectual fat, then you can make it anywhere.

If you can stay alive and intrigued here, then the rest of the world is a miraculous playground by comparison.

So here’s to the simple joys of Pole - the friends, the explorations, the sky, the clear and cold air in your lungs, the simplicity of life, and the mental clarity sans out-world distractions. I may not encounter any vastly life changing moments that can be easily described here but the subtle effects of the landscape, the horizon, and the winds are carving something finite, something literal that will be with me for the remainder of my life.

The subtle interplay of the environment, of the line where sky and land meet - it becomes a reason for my pursuit, for my home here, my home on Lake Superior, my comfort on a coast or beneath the skies of the Great Plains.

Posted by noblehobo at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nothing whatsoever to do with Antarctica tonight. Instead, after an unspecified chunk of time not functioning, an old favorite website is back up and running, Tiny Mix Tapes.

I consider myself a pretentious music snob on occasion and get a solid kick out of piling hours into mix tapes for friends and love interests, but these folks make me a pale indie kid by comparison. The themes to the mixes (user submitted) range the gamut from corny to hopelessly romantic to bizarre and the mixes are an eclectic gathering of current indie rock groups, classic punk, classic rock, and the occasional obscure but incredibly good random artist. It’s a great place to find new artists and songs to meander after and investigate.

Some examples of the themes Tiny Mix Tapes builds on:

-We’re both artsy, neurotic, pretentious douchebags. We’re perfect for each other. Let’s make out.

-Got everything I need on my back and ready to see the world.

-We have tricked a homophobic future investment banker into thinking my male friend desperately wants him. Now we need a tape to continue the ruse, and to accompany the cupcakes we’re putting on his doorstep.

-Songs to help me accept that, if my life was The Golden Girls, I would be Dorothy. Dammit.

-It’s not going to happen, but you can still paint me naked.

-Songs for having an orgasm in art class.

-Nice to meet you. Can I use you?

-If the house was on fire, I’d save you last.

-Songs for sleeping in a hammock.

-Let’s fall madly in love and move out to a cabin in the woods with your dogs and have crazy hermit sex all day, everyday.

Posted by noblehobo at 01:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Harper’s Index, June 1986:

Amount the Reagan Administration has budgeted for military bands in 1987: $154,200,000

Amount it has budgeted for the National Endowment for the Arts:$144,900,000

Posted by noblehobo at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is great power in the world around us with which to heighten an experience, to gnaw away distraction and give clear credence to a truth. A soundtrack set with tense, stringed chords and abrupt, wooden clatter filtered tonight’s thoughts.

Clarity, found not in an answer, but in a question. Clarity to be found in the cusp between possibilities, in the moment before choice…with pictures to the risks of either direction, a view both to immediate weight and the lightness of a wider angle, a pause for the still before the storm.

What, in our lives, is worth the risk of an ideal, the challenge in an idea? Select parts, specific pieces, or the literal involvement of the whole of self? Can one pursue a path for any length of time without the utmost commitment to the journey? With hedged bets and jointly sought alternatives, can the journey be complete?

What becomes worth reckless, hopeful, and soulful abandonment to an ideal?

Posted by noblehobo at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m intrigued by determined personalities, by those who have a particular goal or singular pursuit in life.

Intrigued because I don’t understand it. I’m not built that way, at least not for the long-term. Some people have the ability to build their life around a specific dream, every detail striving toward that final assumption. I maneuver in a wider circle, a track that jumps trains of thought and interests widely and quickly. I can focus my attention tightly for short term goals of various natures but devote my life to one single idea?

Maybe the fact that I’m currently in the middle of seven different books is a good example.

Or maybe the specific goal doesn’t have to be so specific, maybe an ideal is what exists, a goal focused on with a wider-angle lens.

Is a sense of curiosity and wonder enough? What greater gift do we receive than that of learning what it is to be human? We spend our entire lives attempting to understand the meaning behind our existence, our world as it relates to self and others, our hearts, our minds… Learning just how we tick - that’s an adventure I can focus my entire life on.

Posted by noblehobo at 01:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was taken by a good friend, Calee - the fine stories and photos to be found in the link to the upper left.

The night sky here - it keeps you humble.

Posted by noblehobo at 02:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)