Relationships, Community, and Communication

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This summer found me returning to a life amongst nomads.

I gave it go – truly I did: a life on shore, with its accompanying ideas of routine, familiarity, consistency, and community. I found myself much richer in friends, and much poorer in riches. And routine depressed me. Being able to predict the pattern of my days - ad infinitum, - depressed me. I met the possibility of having to be “let go,” due to the financial struggles of the company for which I was working, with an embarrassed hope. Not that I wanted them to fail; I merely wanted to leave, and I didn’t want to quit.

If someone had described to me in great detail what I was getting into with my wine jobs, I never would have started. That being said, I learned a lot, developed skills, and successfully stretched myself in ways I hope never to stretch myself again. Like oh-so-many stages in my life, I appreciate having gone through it, and I am very happy to have moved on.

So now, a little over three years after I first seriously considered leaving the boats (although I must admit, it took me another year to truly go), I find myself returning. I am going to try it a little differently this time, however, and see what plays out. I am going to try to see if I can have the best of both worlds.

Southeast Alaska can infiltrate your being. I first visited when I was around 12, and fell in love. It was the impetus to seize on my first “tour boat” (in the lingo of the Park) job, back when I was 25 and searching for an as-of-then undiscovered new direction. So when an email arrived this past March, describing a position driving a boat in Glacier Bay National Park for the summer, I dared to dream. Within an incredibly difficult time, I managed to get excited. And when the position was offered to me, I felt (blush) honored, like I had succeeded at a long shot. Yet somehow it felt right; it made sense; it was me. It marked the beginning of my experiment of “letting things happen” in my life. Not sitting by passively, but positioning myself to be aware of natural opportunities – possibilities – instead of, as I had been doing for the past many years - unsuccessfully trying to force the directions of my life into bad fits and awkward maneuvers. A summer at the Park was going to be both familiar (the place) and new (the people, the situation). Perfect.

Seasonal Park Service folks are like boat folks, except nerdier. In other words, I fit right in. Being a good bit older than the singles, and a good bit younger than the marrieds, I was part of a minor niche of seasonal employees. But that was good, too – it meant I would stay outside the drama of “the kids,” while playing with both groups, as I chose. And I was again amongst nomads.

Nomads, more than most, are searching for a connection – to people, to a place, to themselves. Rootless, for whatever reason, they restlessly move from place to place, seeking community and understanding. It becomes our common bond.

Gustavus, the town closest to the Park, is the most inclusive, talented, worldly and conscientious community of which I have ever been a part. It pulls people in, strips away the excess, and spits them out with a clearer sense of self, priorities, and pace through life. It has grabbed many initially seasonal residents for the long-term - seized people who had found themselves caught up in the frantic blind rush in the outside world to achieve, over-stimulate, and under-appreciate - who were able to discover meaning and reassurance in the clarity of perspective, peace for reflection, and simple challenges of living in rural Alaska among like spirits.

However, most of the summer crew remain just that; they are impacted by their experience of living in Glacier Bay and Gustavus, but the real world calls, life shifts into familiar priorities and entertainment, and simplicity seems simplistic.

Nomads (of which I consider myself one) can be incredibly self-centered – they form quick, superficially deep bonds with people they meet, sharing secrets while realizing the likelihood of imminent divergent paths. We are who we are in that one place and at that one time – no more; no less – and outside of all other contexts: home, friends, family, ambitions. Boats, the Park Service, seasonal jobs – these all bring together strangers with nothing more in common than some sort of shared curiosity. This environment can make for the most interesting of relationships, emphasizing and developing varying parts of ourselves, exploring new ways of communication and different perspectives of our journey through the world.

It is incredibly liberating. It can also be somewhat deceiving.

We have no real commitments to these intense friendships, these fast relationships. At the end of the season, or the contract, we return to the outside world – either back to the life we came from or on to something new. We do not have to follow through with promises – of who we are and what we want – or worry about secrets told to someone we may never see again. Sure, we’ve learned things, and changed, to a degree. But the mind must live in the present to move forward without regret in this lifestyle, and it is impossible to maintain hundreds of intense relationships gathered over years of new situations. There is not time in the day.

I remember my first few big goodbyes. The incredible sense of loss – a seemingly instantaneous experience in my life, gone forever: leaving friends and shipmates following six weeks in the middle of the Atlantic on a 125’ sailboat; packing up my flat in Edinburgh the summer after college, as my three roommates prepared to head home. But now… It is just another “See ya!” – whether we will or not. We just pretend for the moment, because big goodbyes mean less and less as the friends we leave begin to number into the hundreds. And we wonder, in the transition spaces between here and there, at our loneliness, at our lack of a sense of connection and understanding, and the feeling of insubstantiality as we drift along as prettily as a soap bubble blown into the wind.

At its best, however, community reminds us that the people we meet are not merely supporting characters in the drama which is our life, but the protagonists in their own life story, with us as their own supporting cast. In community, we learn to interact with people – make promises, reveal ourselves – with the understanding that what we present must be substantiated in the future, or we will be called out on our hypocrisy, and experience the impact of our inconsistency. Fully incorporated, community can bring responsibility, a rising out from our self-contained world to contribute to the life experiences of others, as well as to receive the support of the same.

It is no wonder that Gustavus draws in seasonals to “winter over,” and then possibly make a home. Glacier Bay attracts those smart, talented, nomads searching for a sense of place, who have been brought together by a love of wilderness and the desire for a sense of isolation from the outside chaos.

Would any of these relationships, friendships last if removed from the town? Perhaps… We can hope.

And so my new take on this peripatetic lifestyle: maintaining community while wandering with purpose, having a home to return to while stretching my experiences, building on long-standing friendships while enjoying the stimulation of an ever-changing crew.

The second half of my twenties allowed me to jump off the treadmill, shed myself of the extraneous, and figure out my priorities for my interaction with the world. So that now, in the beginning of my 30s, I feel (I hope) I can enter into the chaos of the world, mindful of my impact on those around me without feeling drowned by responsibility; moving consciously through my life, instead of overwhelming my senses and bombarding my being; able to slow down and enjoy the personally meaningful details in my life; letting things happen, and appreciating when they do.