Normally (in the real world) I’d haul myself out of bed and get outside. Go for a barefoot walk through the downtown Duluth streets. Feel the warmth of the concrete ebbing from the summer day, the grass struggling to survive in patches between the road and the sidewalk.

My mind would wander through paths and twists and turns I may not have expected while my bike and I fly down the hillsides toward the Lift Bridge, kick as much speed as possible forward on to the end of Park Point. Admire the full moon rising over the lake and crest the sand dunes, smiling as the waves drown out all other sound.

I might write, later, when it’s done. Might write when my mind has paced itself enough to collate thought more carefully. Might just crawl back in to bed and sleep the sleep of ages.

Stir-crazy and cabin-fever are not words that I use to describe life here often. Mostly, when others ask me about them (a favorite question from off-ice folk) I scoff and say we know damn well how to entertain ourselves. Tonight? I’m stir-crazy. Cabin fever is raging some. I’d like to go for that barefoot walk. The scenery, though, just isn’t doing it and, funny thing, it’s cold outside!

I’ve two hallways and two sets of stairs to cycle through, a few rooms to poke my head in to, and that’s it. The same two hallways I’ve walked through for the last ten months. The same two sets of stairs that I’ve climbed. The same covered windows (no light leaks for science projects). The same lockers lining the halls. The same checkerboard patterns, scientifically configured to appeal to the various aspects of the psyche, all appealing to me to tear their appalling colors down.

The station, large as it is for sixty people, is old hat. It’s getting hard to find new nooks and crannies, hard to not want to throw some color on the walls (not without the appropriate CCR and approval, you don’t). Hard not to seek an escape.

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They’re there, though. The escapes. The alternative angles. Get done with a rant, stand there huffing and puffing, catching your breath, and you can see them. You can find that spot of comfort. Maybe in the green house, buried in the smell of plants and the dense humidity. Maybe in the high ceiling and cavernous feeling of the dark gym. Maybe in the galley, empty and quiet for a change.

Maybe, just maybe, you find it by bundling up and hauling yourself outside. In staring at the moon, admiring the brightness of it, the length of your shadow, the play of the drifts that have recently formed. In the horizon, lit up like daylight in the moonlight. In the stars and the hint of aurora.

Maybe, just maybe, what you need is always there, waiting. Change your perspective, you just might find it.

You would like to sum it up into a single word, even a simple phrase, but get the idea that it can’t be done. An untranslatable feeling, a German word with no English equivalent; a human emotion that precedes language. Endless hours writing might be spent in an attempt to describe it. You would only be dancing loosely around the truth.

Instead then, of translating, you go back to your room and find music that carries memory. Similar moments from your past rise up in the ebb and flow of the songs you hear. With a knowing and slightly heavy sigh, you lean back and savor what you can. Patience and time, confidence hold you in knowledge of tasting it another day.

Two day weekends (or longer) are perfect in this regard. I can have a day of productivity (hiking, biking, building, scheming, socializing, etc.) and a day or more where I take life at the pace I enjoy - slowly and openly. Here, encased in a schedule that offers us one-day weekends, the mix of productivity and laziness get crammed. Neither feels fully completed and the work week starts up with a muddled mind.

Still, I try to find what I can - seek my rest where I need it and my activity where I can find it. I may not be able to find easy mornings in the sun with tea and a book here, but the lights of the greenhouse run a close second.

Unfortunately, most of the boot camps are quite expensive. IT certifications can set one up for a well-paying career. As a result most of the boot camps are on par with a semester or two at a state college for cost. The suggestion that came in from my friend today was to look outside of the US.

As it turns out there are courses available in India for about half of the price stateside that offer the same certifications. I’m hopelessly intrigued by the idea as it would let me combine the reality of supporting my travel and dreams while expanding them. No sense, if I were to fly to New Delhi, to only spend the class time there when Nepal, China, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, and the stopover in London (or elsewhere in Europe) are nearby.

I’ve no idea yet if I’ll pull it off but a first glance at the program and ticket prices from Minneapolis to India leave me strongly considering it. I compared the cost of trying to get there from New Zealand post-ice and from getting there after Christmas from the states. Turns out it’s actually less expensive to fly out of Minneapolis in January or February than it would be to catch the Asian subcontinent in November or December from New Zealand.

My plans - in other words, for post-ice travel are to stick to New Zealand and Hawaii, focusing on beaches and a slow transition back to the real world from the isolation of my current life. No sense trying to cram in a trip to and through one of the worlds largest, dirtiest, craziest cities after having just spent the last ten months with only sixty people. I like culture shock but I also like my sanity.

Still, it’s fun to dream and the reality of leaving here debt free is becoming very, very empowering.

• MCSA and MCSE stand for Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, respectively. One of those and an additional certification focus in security and/or Linux System Administration should leave me a far more marketable IT geek.

My current gig, as the Systems Administrator for the South Pole Station’s IT network leaves me a bit stymied, however. I’ve a good base for IT work, with a history of computer geeking and Graphic Design under my belt. Our environment here is unique though. With our time zone differences, lack of consistent internet, and limited resources (human and other) I find myself working in an isolated environment on a regular basis.

All of us provide help to each other when we can and there are folks off-continent that we can turn to when it seems the planets align correctly. I’m working without a consistent mentor this time around and doing so has been a learning experience. The breadth and depth of knowledge required to be an expert in the IT field amazes me. There is a constant need for training, experimentation, and active practice to be able to resolve issues in a timely manner. Rare is the day that goes by in which I do not encounter something new needing to be solved and researched, or in which something I only recently taught myself becomes necessary.

In the past, working other technology related positions, I’ve quickly realized that though I pick up on it readily, I don’t always enjoy it. Here, I’ve found a good deal more satisfaction. I credit that, however, on the Pole, on working with such wide variety of (generally) good people under the auspices of supporting scientific research.

So I wonder, lately, if IT will be something that I pursue when I leave here or if for me it is a career anchored to the seasonal work of Antarctica. It matches up to all of the “adult” considerations in my life but can I still feel passionate toward my existence if I pursue it? Can I find that away from here?

Satisfaction in work can come from so many different possibilities be they co-workers, missions and statements, love of the thing that one is actually doing, or a place. It’s hard to tell for me why I’ve moved from career to career so many different times, why I’ve side-slipped from idea to idea. That’s the kick though - it’s the idea that drives me, experimenting with something new.

Here it is the idea of the people I work for and with at the South Pole - the “family” I’m isolated with. In trail work it’s the power of nature and the simple pleasure of solid physical labor. In teaching? The awkward moments of uncertainty - wondering if you’re making any sort of impression or difference, finding out on the rare occasion that you are. In Graphic Design it’s the joy of making art.

All of these ideas still end up balancing with the other parts of life, though. Ideas mix with the reality of making a living and being responsible for self. Dreams mix with the actuality of the market or economic sector you hold in. Trail work and Antarctica offer only contract positions - a constantly changing flux of having to look for the next job. The utter lack of passion I felt for supporting consumerism led me to leave design work and the difficulties of maintaining a relationship left me reconsidering seasonal trail work.

All in all, life continues to maneuver and the reality of financial stability doesn’t disappear. So do I complete my contract, grab some certifications, and hang on to the IT world for a punch? Do I meander back to school to focus on something new? Or do I try for a little bit of everything, keep exploring, keep traveling, keep playing and give a shot toward something that might support my life as is?

I’d say the latter. I’d say that I start working at building a writing career in the same way that I once built a freelance Graphic Design business. Slowly, with interest and passion, mistakes and successes, and a willingness to see where it might lead. Who knows? I could just end up on a bike, writing stories as I go.

Regardless, I’m giving the writing vein a shot. I’m learning how to put together query letters, contacting several different sources offering my services as a writer, and working with a couple of friends already in the field to find a start. It could be a nice side income, it could be a career. In the end, that doesn’t necessarily matter. For now, it’s exploring something new that can run concurrent with the rest of my dreams and with the ideas that drive me.

Turning frequently, I tried to scan the horizons for new stars, for meteors, for the Aurora. I took in what I could and at the end, my eyes fully adjusted, caught a hint of light on the far edge of my view - saw the the very beginnings of the rising sun.

I’m definitely more willing to tear up (or try to) a dance floor with a partner but still find myself hesitant to ask for a hand on occasion. I’ve found more lasting friends and far better understand what loyalty means yet I still seek to stay on the good side of as many in my community as possible. And while I’m a far cry from the star of the show or one of the cool kids I am very happily set to be the man that I am. Maturity and age, over ten years out from those days… Funny how they don’t seem all that far back.

There’s a strong bout of nostalgia floating in my head, a feeling I can almost, but not quite, grasp that contains the better memories of that time. Moments of laughter, sitting with a crush in the catwalk of the theater after a rehearsal; of watching the sunrise from the rooftop of a farmhouse after a party; of the school - silent and empty save our sleep-deprived mayhem at three AM returning from a speech meet; of the bus rides and late-fall afternoons of cross country tournaments… A want to return to the choir room, late at night after a musical, to sit and tell stories and dig up old songs; for the walks home with giant mugs of horrible cappuccino and philosophical discussions under the bridge; for rain-walks; for abandoned-barn dreaming time with my first love; for late nights staring at the stars, laid out with friends on the hoods of our beat up cars; getting kicked out of conferences in Minneapolis; the awkward party moments that lead to truth; the hopeless crushes; blundering dates with my first girlfriend; the great unknown innocence we tested daily; the run of the art department; the feeling of invulnerability paired with abject fear. I never did find complete confidence, never did get rid of the wariness of my peers and the cool kids, but I had a damn good time regardless, learned some lessons, walked with my head high, look back with laughter, and would gladly relive it in a moment.

Basking in memories of the easy days of high school, I decided to tear into some more history - digging into a pile of letters I’ve been intending to respond to. Forgotten to me was the depth of history in the box full of letters - not just correspondence but job applications, notes of past-future dreams, small gifts from good friends, a few pictures, and forgotten memories from the last five years of adventure. So much too, of that adventure…

Old letters are a drink, heavy-laden, prone to remembrance, nostalgia, and the good intentions of unwritten missives. I need not drink any red wine to feel that warm buzz-mix of love, regret, and hope. I only need open a box full of rag tag paper and penned scribbles.

The box (a Chaco sandal box - for my like minded friends) holds the story of the major loves of my life - a touch of each, missed in the packaging up of memories at the end of a relationship. It holds the ebb and flow of friendships, the birth, near-death, and healing of several over time. My family, extended and close, is carried as well, a strong note of the letters I’ve yet to write to my grandparents, my parents, my brother, and my sister.

It’s the same feeling (or very similar) to the nostalgia for high school - wonderment at the life I’ve led thus far, at the bizarre, the amazing, and the painful. The urge to not let it go, the understanding that it has passed, and the shit-eating grin for the sheer, maddening joy of it all.

Those mornings, driving along Lake Superior, cresting a hill to witness this, those mornings were damn fine. I’m a child of flat horizons and I know the comfort of Superior and the hills of the North Shore. The distant flats where Superior’s waters meet the sky bring a peace to my mind like few other landscapes can. Still, when the sky, the sun, and the clouds conspire to add mountains to the horizon, to crest my lake with a visage of ancient rock? I can’t think of a better magic trick.

In talking with a friend the other day who calls Chicago home, it turns out that Lake Michigan knows the trick too.

With a little luck, when the sun finally slips above our Antarctic flats, we’ll see mountains here too.

Tarnish it, once earned, and the resentment stays lasting. No chemical bath, no amount of frenzied scrubbing, no mechanism can release the clustered fear and anxiety. Time and aging may fade the surface around the tarnish, may dim its dark brilliance but the moment remains. Scar tissue - resentment, the brutal remnant of a past not so easily forgotten.

___________________

In other news (and certainly of a brighter sort) we passed an official mark on Friday. At 10 AM the circling sun hit eighteen degrees below the horizon. This marks the official designation between complete darkness and astronomical twilight. Not that we can see anything with the blowing snow at the moment (we’ve some quality sustained winds at thirty-five to forty miles per hour drifting in the station) but if we could, there would be the faintest of faint bits of light on the distant edge of our view.

When the winds clear, I’ll be out to look for the signs of the sun’s return, be out to catch the glow of the Southern Lights while I still can, and look forward to consistent daylight in another month or so.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the dark, the stars, and the quiet cocoon-like feeling they can offer. I’d be happy to keep them a while longer too but the physical and mental effects of the lack of light are beginning to take their toll. As a whole, our memories are failing, out tempers rising, and our patience faltering. We’re fortunate to have a very easy-going crew but the dark wears everyone down somewhat.

That, and it’ll be nice to take the coverings off the windows and to be able to see the horizon from inside again.

I spent the night putting together mix tape (CDs, actually, but I still like the sound of a mix tape better) playlists in the greenhouse. For a change, the songs were for no one in particular, just gathered against a loose collection of differing themes. Generally, when I use others’ words for my own, I’m focused on a particular friend, crush, or lover (and occasionally all three wrapped into one). Those moments feel like the creation of art - complete abandon and attention paid to the meaning and feeling that the songs carry, a mission made easy be the resolute passion toward the playlist’s target.

As of late, I’ve had no particular aim - no burning goal in my future of person or place. Instead, there has been a theme in my life since making the decision to come here over a year past. A theme of calm orientation toward the passage of time, toward the unknown of next year.

For certain there have been moments of near panic (in bouts of insomnia in the wee hours) where I struggled to determine the great “what-next?!?” that many of us struggle with. I have spent a great deal of hours both in excited thrall at possible futures and light dread at worried outcomes. Overall, however, I return to the feeling that enveloped me last July.

One year ago I was involved in the first full-time, salaried employment of my life. I had managed to settle in to a world of permanence - of a job, home, and world with no end date in sight, no contract termination to spur the next adventure. It was a good life and taught me a great deal of lessons but I found consistently that something was not right. The urge to move on, particularly related to my work, was strong.

Over time, previous dreams of Antarctica wound their way into my head - the winter season that I had not yet had a chance to do, that I had walked away from in my attempt at a more settled life. I started to pursue jobs at the bottom of the planet again, not entirely certain of whether I was going to take them or not. I struggled a great deal to find the happiness and comfort I was craving but always saw it elsewhere, not in the place I was.

Calm came, however, when I made the decision to quit my job, to move on. Because of the timing of the hiring process for the Antarctic, I did so without any guarantee of work or home at the end of last August, at the end of my settled experiment. That calm was manifest in the knowledge of moving toward satisfaction in my life, in learning to again listen to my whole self (not just my head) in decisions about my future.

I did not know what the outcome would be - no specifics were available to me. I did not have a guaranteed home, income, or work but I had no doubt that I would be well set to roll with the punches of what was to come. Should Antarctica have not worked out? I’d use what savings I had to find another path, to push to another ideal. The calm was that of confidence of path, even if the path was uncertain.

I’ve been in many moments of my life where I knew very well the direction I was headed and did so with fortitude and strength. I will gladly accept moments like that again in my future. The strength that I am finding in patience with the great unknown - well, there’s a tenacity there I’m new to. My future is yet undetermined, my path unclear, but the options are all intriguing and my confidence in my ability to provide for myself and to thrive are at a solid, even keel.

I have always felt right with the world when in the midst of a powerful love or at the beginning of a new adventure - that’s an easy fix one can quickly become addicted to. Feeling right with world in the middle of the long haul? That’s escaping the hold of previous dependencies for the freedom of enjoying the present.

It’s not perfect in the ebb and flow of confidence and future but it’s a welcome addition to my life here, to my psyche, to my eventual pursuits, and toward the patience and open eyes I’ll need when I next try to settle in one place for a spell.

I’ll again welcome the passion of a resolute path when it comes my way. In the mean, I’ll be glad to cull the larger picture for memorable moments and to write my story from the broad swath of an open theme. I’ll mix tapes of others’ words for traveling the unknown road toward the sunrise.

Fortunately, the struggle seems to come in waves and it feels as if I’m about to slip back into the mainstream. Sleep is coming again in large, all-night chunks and (at least after a cup or two of coffee) I feel awake and rested. We run an interesting gauntlet here in the space between sunrise and sunset. The human body is not built to handle so many months without the sun, so many months without it touching one’s skin…

There’s a story connected to this I love to tell but it’s best done so around a fire, under the moving skies themselves. I’ll save the story but offer this:

I know that the auroras are caused by the interaction between the particles of the solar wind and the upper atmosphere of the Earth, that particles from the sun sliding down into our atmosphere at the magnetic poles excite the electrons in the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, that when those excited electrons return to their static states they release light in varying wavelengths, that the light released shines in a set oval depending on the magnetic fields of the Earth, that the light released is what we call the auroras… I know all this. When I stare up into the sky and watch the stars hide behind a pulsating band of green or a writhing shield of red, the science is not the first thing, however, that comes to my mind. When I try to hold the sky within my sight, all that I can think of is magic.

If you’d like a taste of what we see nearly daily - a taste of why I’m here, take a look at the pictures.