Category: Banalities & Journaling

Today was one of those days where I felt like I had a job, even though I don’t.
The “storage tent” Arthur ordered – which is for me to put my extra stuff in – arrived. It’s a large object: a box of a kit that needs to be built. So it was at the Alaska Marine Lines freight office in town. That meant we had to take the trailer into town (though in retrospect I think if we’d really wanted, we could have put the box into the back of his SUV).
To take the trailer into town, we had to rearrange the trailers parked in the driveway – there’s a heavy-duty cargo trailer and a boat trailer. Arthur wanted to drive these trailers around, and my thinking was that he has a lot more experience driving trailers around than I do, on the steep driveway and one-lane dirt road, so I let him, just kind of watching and trying to be a spotter for when he should stop backing up.
Clearly Arthur was struggling with the 3D puzzle aspect of backing trailers into the odd angles of his driveway. I know that it’s not an easy thing – I don’t presume that I could have done much better. But for Arthur, who is accustomed to a sense of expertise and smooth competence with this type of thing, I think it was painful for him to confront the fact that he just wasn’t doing well. Over and over, he would back up, hit the bushes or the side of the road, missing his target, and have to pull up and try again. I mean – I’ve been there. Trailers are hard to back up. But he was getting frustrated and angry, as he does.
I couldn’t do anything but just let go and let him struggle. And worst was that, after we finally got the trailers where he wanted, and we were getting ready to drive into town for our weekly Thursday shopping and errand trip, well, Arthur noticed (and I did too) that he’d managed to place a huge dent in his front bumper while doing all his back-and-forth navigating the trailer. It was clearly a new wound to the vehicle, and noticeable.
Arthur was devastated. I think not just that he’d dented his SUV, but that he didn’t remember doing it. I could see him kind of deflate, and I recalled sitting with the SLP (Speech Pathologist) at the VA, a month and a half ago, and her saying, “Well, perhaps he’s just going to have to have his moments of failure, for his new limitations to hit home.” I think this was just such a moment.
I drove into town. At one point, in one of the parking lots, it became my moment to have to back up the trailer – because we were hauling around, to pick up the storage tent. Arthur started to try to tell me how to do it. As I said, I’m certainly no expert trailer-backer-upper, either. But then he just grumbled, “don’t listen to me, you saw what I did.” It was a moment where he showed his shame and embarrassment.
We got the tent. He left the trailer hooked up to the SUV in the driveway, perhaps thinking he’d want to tackle more backing up tomorrow. I’m not sure I’m up for it. But it’ll have to happen, I guess.
It was not that difficult a day from a task standpoint. It was emotionally rough, I guess you could say.
On a brighter note, I had made some 김치볶은밥 (kimchi fried rice) for lunch, and Arthur conceded it was “quite acceptable” – which is high praise, coming from him.

A cloud in the afternoon.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

This morning Arthur and I took Wayne to the Klawock airport, and he flew back to his home on Vancouver Island, BC. 

That leaves just Arthur and me alone together again, at this place Arthur calls "Rockpit, Alaska." That's Arthur's name for his location. Typically it's called "Port Saint Nicholas" but that invokes images of Santa Claus or some Russian colony that never existed, maybe. I like the name Rockpit.

On a walk down the road, I noticed that fall comes early.

And Raven, observing the world and then taking flight.

As the saying goes, it's "just us chickens," now. But that seems to refer to the neighbors' chickens. The immediate neighbors to the east – with whom Arthur does not really get along – also have goats and dogs, who are somewhat annoying because they generally run loose, and no one informed them as to the location of the property line. So yes, I have seen goats on Arthur's front porch, and dogs on his dock. Of course out in the woods, there are bears.

I no longer have any excuse to not work on some of the unpleasant projects hanging over me: e.g., my tax problem. This has me somewhat depressed.

[daily log: walking, 4.5km]

Today was Arthur's birthday. Last week was my birthday.

Wayne was very cool – he ordered us a chocolate cake, with both of our names on it. So we had a birthday party. And the rain came, to help us celebrate.

Here is Mr. Heron, on the dock in the damp drizzle, this morning.

Here is the expressway, on our afternoon walk.

Here is the cake, and two people getting older.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

This morning, Juli and Keith left to return back to Portland. They took the ferry across to Ketchikan, which requires a very early departure from the house – 6 AM. Wayne drove them over there, and then went and did some of his river/estuary fishing, while Arthur and I stayed home. I went up the hill and tromped about a bit. I am trying to place some surveyors' string up along what I think is the south lot line so that I can maybe have more luck finding one of the the southwest corner stakes.

Wayne came back around noon. He had a lot of fish, which he took down to the dock to get cleaned.

In the afternoon, we went into town to run errands – Thursday is shopping day!

[daily log: walking, 2km; tromping, 200m]

We had a busy day with our guests.

In the morning, we went out fishing. The fish, however, chose not to participate. Here are three guests on the boat – Wayne, Keith, and Juli. Wayne is the person who originally taught Arthur most of what he knows about fishing. Wayne and Arthur are pretty good friends. Wayne is also Keith's brother-in-law. He lives on Vancouver Island (he's Canadian).

Later in the day we drove into Craig. There was an art show at the Tribal Council hall. It's pretty surprising the range of talent in such a small town – sorry, no pics. Of course, you know you're in a small town – everyone knows each other. 

Then we walked around town. We saw a lovely pastoral scene – abandoned house-boats.

We saw Richard's landing craft, which he is restoring (it's a bit derelict). He intends to use it to land heavy machinery on small, off-the-grid islands.

Finally, in the afternoon, back at the house, I searched again up the hill for one of the property stakes. I found one – the easy one, on the southeast corner.

[daily log: walking, 3km; tromping, 150m]

I had a rather busy day today.

First, in the morning, I tried tromping up to the southeast corner of the lot. I didn't reach it – I got about two-thirds of the way, which would be about 50m. But that's through thick undergrowth, ancient logging slash and up a very steep hill.

Then, I got back to the bottom of the hill and Arthur said, "Let's go fishing." 

So we went fishing. We didn't catch any fish. We also stopped and got gas for the boat, because we have guests coming.

Then we ran into town and ran a few errands, and then we collected our guests at the Craig downtown airport (float plane landing). 

Juli, Keith and Wayne arrived from parts south, via Ketchikan.

Here's their airplane, coming in to the dock.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km; tromping, 100m]

Art's friend and sometime service provider Richard came out today with his backhoe to start work on digging the new driveway for the western parcel. This was the project that Arthur had initiated back in May when he was trying to survey the parcel's property line so as to get the new driveway place properly – at which time he had his accident.

So I guess finally we're catching up to where he wanted to be at the beginning of summer. But with less fish in the freezer and with the driveway work only starting, instead of being finished.

Here is Richard's backhoe, chomping at the shrubberies and trees.

We also saw a bear today, when we went on our afternoon walk. It wasn't that scary – the bear just crossed the road. We waited a bit and went on our way.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

We went out fishing this morning. Arthur caught one fish.

In the afternoon, I went up the hill on what's becoming my daily trompabout. I still can't find the stake marking the southwest corner of the lot. Searching and sliding… 

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 150m]

I went out tromping on the hillside again this morning. You'd be surprised to learn it's possible to get lost within 200 feet of the road – the brush is so thick, and the hillside is so steep and irregular. Anyway, I found myself again. I have GPS on my phone – there's no real danger, I don't think – assuming I can avoid conking my head against a branch or something, as presumably happened to Arthur in his accident in May.

The day cleared up nicely, though. We will probably go fishing again tomorrow.

Here's a picture from up in the shrubberies. The camera made it sideways – which is often how I was looking at the world, up there, so I decided to leave it that way. It would be nice if my phone's camera was smarter about this – it's a lot of work using my computer to get the pictures oriented the right way, and for now, I'm too lazy to do it, because I can use the disorientation of my morning's experience as a justification for the mis-oriented picture. Right?

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 150m]

Arthur found a rainbow. He wanted to clean his boat, so he got it out of the water. I let him do his thing, although of course I watched and worried. I think it's important for him to not feel micromanaged.

I spent most of the day sorting some boxes. It will be a long project.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Just in case I was running out of books, someone generously mailed some books to me from Korea.

Oh, wait. That was me. They took a while to cross the Pacific in a boat. Yay! More books.

In other news, Arthur and I made a truce. I gave him a kind of ultimatum: I've committed to not stopping him from doing stupid stuff, in exchange for him not hiding the fact that he's doing stupid stuff. I figure it's a sort of compromise, and hopefully if he's committed to telling me about it, he might think about it more, too.

Such as it is. We went out looking fish this morning, but none were interested in joining us on the boat.

We went into town to go shopping (Thursday is seniors' day at the market). That's when I got my boxes.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

So today was a hard day. It started with heavy rain, which perhaps annoyed Art because he'd ideated going fishing again. When the rain cleared in the afternoon, we took a walk down to the bridge (which we're trying to do everyday).

But then he insisted on going out this afternoon to try to finish the survey project that was what he'd been working on when he hurt his head in May. I happily went with him, figuring that it needed to be done. I'd try to make sure it went safely. Mostly tromping through the brush, climbing steep slopes strewn with ancient slash… that kind of thing.

We managed it. We measured between the waterline and the road, and we got the half way point flagged, so Richard can know where to put the new driveway through. I suppose during this "surveying project" I felt some apprehension, or anxiety – after all, this is where he'd fallen before. And the trail is pretty damn precarious, even for me, with my somewhat more agile body. Lots of slippery logs, holes through rotting material, broken branches sticking.

We get out of the trail up at the road, and I felt relieved. I said, as some offhand remark, "Well, now you've retraced your steps."

Just as offhandedly, Arthur said, "Oh, well, I already went down there myself the other day."

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach. And on the verge of tears, swallowed down because there would be no point in such an emotional outburst, would there? No doubt, he'd done his little walk during one of those times when I was unloading the trailer and he'd said he was going to take a walk on the road.

I guess, now, I feel really pissed off.

Why am I even bothering to try to keep track of him? He's going to do what he wants, anyway. I'm not going to monitor him 24/7.

And I've got these concerns, moving forward. He's made a commitment to tell me when he's going to do something risky. But his risk assessment ability is so clearly broken.

I know he's been contemplating taking the chainsaw and clearing brush in anticipation of Richard coming some day soon. I've said, several times, that I'll happily help him… but how can I prevent him from deciding to do it on his own? Or any other of the many dangerous things he might choose to undertake on his own… Do I need to hide or disable the chainsaw? I don't want to treat him like a child. An obstreperous child.

Some pictures follow – mostly of the path he'd cleared before the accident, that we measured along, today. They're in order from the road (top of hill) to water (bottom of hill). You can see the little pink flags he tied – most of those flags were tied already – he'd done them before his accident. Or who knows – maybe he stumbled around, bloody and brain damaged, and completed his project after his injury.

A lonesome blueberry.

[daily log: walking, 5km]

Finally, there was a non-rainy day that could make it possible for Arthur to fulfill his long-felt destiny: going fishing.

We got in the boat, and got ready. It's an odd experience – I am relying on him for his expertise and knowledge on this undertaking, because I know nothing about it. He has to be the safety officer, yet there are concerns over how well he can plan for and anticipate problems, in the wake of his brain injury. So I have to be very alert, yet not do much. Just watching and hoping he knows what the hell he's doing. 

In fact, there was one aspect where his planning was a bit poor. He didn't check out the engines, etc., very well. And there was a problem: one of the two batteries (there's a backup) was completely dead, and not recharging on the engine. This, of course, was a bit worrying. More worrying was when we parked in the middle of the inlet, with the engines shut off, while he attempted to diagnose the problem. What if both batteries ended up dead? I pondered.

In the end, luck was with us, and we restarted the engine on one battery, and drove out to his fishing spot. And we got one fish. Just one. But for a short time, Arthur seemed genuinely happy.

[daily log: walking, 3km; boating, 20km]

I have a lot of stuff, there's no denying that – now that it's put all together, and nothing is in storage any more. 90% of it is cellulose, meaning, obviously books, but also a vast packrattery of files and a smattering of wooden furniture. So I have dubbed it "my kingdom of (mostly) cellulose."

As I was moving the last of my book boxes (there are still many other non-book boxes to be moved) up to the attic, I had a sort of epiphany about Arthur and "stuff."

Arthur does not, in fact, perceive his house full of stuff as being "his" stuff. Rather, in his own mind, I think he believes that he has built and now maintains and staffs a kind of hotel for his extended family and friends. Thus he can self-honestly claim that he has almost no possessions, all while keeping his vast, well-apportioned "Rockpit Estate." 95% of what's in the house and on the property is not his, but rather, the "house's."

Because of this, he can't in fact relate – at all! – to my rather baroque collection of personal effects: knickknacks, mementoes, files, old gadgets, books… he sees the whole mass of it as excessive and unnecessary, because it is so clearly "mine" – unlike his collection, which is maintained "for other people," and which he simply makes use of, as the proprietor and sole staff member of his "hotel."

On the one hand, this is a great reflection of his core generosity of spirit. On the other hand, it means he lacks empathy, in the extreme, for my state of mind and my needs.

Everything up to this point has nothing to do with his recent traumatic brain injury. It's an aspect of his personality which has always been in play. What's changed is that he is now much less tolerant of deviations from what he expects, and he is frustrated and confused by the inaccessibility of other people's states of mind instead of seeming merely benignly uninterested, as has been his baseline behavior.

Thus he seems utterly bewildered by my desire to keep these things of mine, and by my interest in being surrounded by them. For me, having this kind of "nest" populated by my things is essential to me maintaining my sense of self. All the years in Korea, I was separated from a great portion of it, yet I was constantly adding to the collection, and defining my personal space by the objects that filled it. I could certainly survive that way. But I'm not ready to let go of all the things I'd set aside when I went to Korea – they always occupied not just the storage unit in Minnesota, but a substantial back room in my core identity. I don't know how to solve it.

I hope as he recovers, he can at least return to his benign ignorance of my otherness, instead of seeming to feel threatened by it. But meanwhile, we're having a bit of a struggle. Of course, I expected some aspects of settling in together would end up a struggle. But I didn't realize, I guess, that it would take this form.

[daily log: walking, 3km; boxes, ∞/4]

I woke up before dawn. This was the Sunny Hay, shrouded in clouds across the water.

We went into town in the morning. Arthur was confident at the bank, but confused at the library. That's because he was thrown off because the library employee wasn't who he was expecting. New things…

My move became a concrete reality because my container was delivered in the afternoon. Rather than having to unload it all at once, they are leaving the container over the weekend and will take it back Tuesday. This gives time to unload it.

For Arthur, the whole reason for wanting to come back to Alaska was made a reality later in the afternoon, as we got the boat out of its hidey-hole (the "boatshed") and launched. Arthur has designed this process so well, that it's easy to do – I just stood around making sure things were safe, and lifting heaving things a few times. And it was launched.

[daily log: walking, 4km; carrying heavy stuff, yes]

We flew up to Klawock (Craig), Alaska, today.

The trip was divided into 3 legs: Portland to Seattle, Seattle to Ketchikan, and Ketchikan to Klawock. 

On the second leg, the 737 landed at Ketchikan, and the pilot turned off the "no seat belts" light and everyone stood up. Then the pilot came on the intercom and said: "Sorry everyone. I screwed up. I pulled up to this jetway, and I went 6 inches too far. And this jetway here in Ketchikan [there is only one jetway] doesn't move. So I'm going to have to back up the plane six inches. Please grab a seat." The flight attendants had to close up all the doors, all that stuff… the pilot had to fire up the engine. It was funny. Just to move 6 inches backward. We couldn't even feel the plane move. And it was done.

Then we waited around for a while and got on the small plane, over to Prince of Wales Island, where Arthur's house is.

Countdown to Craig, Alaska: zero. Arrived.

[daily log: walking, 3km in airports]

Juli's garden is producing immense numbers of home-grown tomatoes. We might have to eat some.

Countdown to Craig, Alaska: 3 days.

[daily log: walking, 3.5km]

We drove up the road.

But first, we had some breakfast with Barb and Tom Peters, in Eureka. These are old friends of my mom's and Arthur's.

Their house is charming.

Across the street is a high school my sister attended, though I never did.

The Oregon coast was photogenic.

Countdown to Craig, Alaska: 5 days.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

I did a lot of exploring of old places today. The town, the beach, the university, the park. I took photos. I'll add more photos or commentary later.

[daily log: walking, 7km]