Sometimes it takes me awhile to process the intensity of emotional connections. Days, weeks, months, even years pass before I fully decipher the meaningful nuance of situations I have experienced in my lifetime. Often I must withdraw from a situation entirely before I can understand the significance of what transpired.
I'm not alone in this. This delay in emotional comprehension fuels countless human regrets, bittersweet memories, and misplaced longings. The desire to return to a moment, to regain someone or something lost to us, has played out in every human heart at one time or another.
Places pull at me in this way.
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| Prince William Sound, June 2015 |
There are places I have traveled on this globe that hold such an emotional draw, given a quiet moment, I can invariably recreate the very scent of the air, the angle of light, the sound of the streets, the touch of the wind in my mind's eye.
My list is varied. It includes the far-flung places of Guangzhou, China; Paris, France; and Bacalar, Mexico. Consistently, Alaska remains near the top of this list.
Alaska is unique in that it's greatest draw for tourism is not man-made. It's a place of such unyielding natural beauty, such momentous landscapes, and such breathtaking scenery that I find myself utterly gushing descriptions when asked. So beautiful. So rugged. So majestic...there are not enough adjectives to describe the depth and breadth of my visceral appreciation. It stays with me, Alaska does. And for the life of me, it shouldn't.
It's too cold, too remote, too rainy, too many earthquakes, too expensive.
So, I am most fortunate that I always have reason to return. My step-daughter lives in Anchorage, so every other year we are able to indulge our appreciation of the place without financial commitment beyond airfare and a few restaurant meals.
She warns the four of us, traveling from this temperate state of Alabama, that the remoteness of Alaska's devastating beauty comes at a price. As a police officer in the highest crime city in the United States, she knows this well. As a decade-long resident, she has lived through her share of miserable winters in that "last frontier."
But we visitors have the luxury of seeing only the romance of the state. We overlook the harsh weather, the dark winters, the cold. But with good reason. As outsiders (and we are considered outsiders by Alaskans, hence the term 'lower 48'), we see everything in the best light. Literally, because we're only there during the near 24-hour days of summer.
Travel is usually divided into two categories: the familiar (visits to friends and family) and the foreign (travels to new places). For me at least, Alaska represents the best of both. No matter how many times I visit, it remains completely fresh and new. It yields great adventures, but provides the comforts of the familiar. It's remains the same, yet vastly different with each subsequent visit.
So every time, I enjoy it anew.
Recently, we were dining next to a couple that took up a conversation with us, which oddly turned to their travels in Alaska. As we shared stories of places familiar to all of us, the wife looked me squarely in the eye, challenging me to understand her love of the place.
"It calls you back, you know?"
Indeed I do. I most certainly do.
