I am often asked why I chose to go to college in Alaska.  I have, of course, several set answers of varying degrees of importance and truthfulness:

I wanted to get as far from my parents as possible and still live in the continental U.S.  This one is depressingly true, but not a major motivation.  I have obviously changed my view on this as I now live only a few miles from them which places me closer to my parents than any of my siblings.

I was given a scholarship.  Also true, but I actually received better scholarships from a few other schools.  In fact, some of the scholarships offered to me were full-ride scholarships, and that was without my solicitation.  Who knows what I could have qualified for if I had actually put forth an effort.

I wanted to get away from all I was and reinvent myself.  While this is mostly true, and at least partially successful, I was also terrified of the idea of leaving the familiar.  I suppose part of my decision to leave was to challenge my fear of the unknown.

The school had a well-ranked engineering program.  While true about the school, I had no real desire to be an engineer, even though I took engineering focused courses for my first year.  While I tell people that I changed my major after taking the engineering courses, the truth is that I never had a real desire to go through the program to begin with.

The real reason I went to Alaska was because I didn't feel like I belonged in Michigan, or Minnesota, or Illinois, or most of the other places I had visited.  Yet, when I got the envelope from UAF, I felt Alaska calling to me.  For that matter, it still does.  I remember being told by a couple of veteran Alaskans that usually out-of-state college students seemed out-of-place in Fairbanks, but for some reason I seemed liked I had been born there.

Today, we walked around the county fair.  A large part of my mind kept looking around me and feeling out-of-place.  I didn't feel a connection to the people around me.  Even though I was born and raised in this county, I feel like a stranger, an outsider.  While I know the streets, the place is foreign to me.

On our vacation, I kept picturing moving to some of the locations that we visited, but none of them felt right.  Many of the places attracted me more than where I live and work now, but they still seemed slightly out-of-phase with my being.

There are many things that keep me from moving back to Alaska, but I feel a hole in my existence while I don't live there.  Who knows?  Perhaps this is a case of the "grass is greener" as there were certainly times while I was in Alaska that I missed Michigan (particularly my family and the seasons).  Perhaps it's part of a mid-life crisis.  I just don't feel like I belong here.

Willow trees hold a special place in my heart.  The first tree that I remember climbing was a willow.  It was a tree where my imagination was able to soar.  I even tried soaring myself from it once with wings made out of paper.

My parents had three willow trees in their yard while I was growing up.  One was in the front on the side hill.  This was my first tree.  It had a double trunk with one side giving dividing even further and then dividing again, all relatively low to the ground.  Basically, that side allowed at least two people to sit comfortably in it without requiring too much work.  It was my spaceship.  Often I would sit in the "gunner" seat (which was higher) while my sister "piloted" our craft.  The other side of the tree was a much more difficult climb, but it had a fantastic perch to serve as a lookout post.

The second one was my least favorite as it was near the apple trees and thus more bugs.  It also had a low-hanging branch, but it didn't have the multiple perches for more than one person to use.  It was, however, possible to hang a tire-swing from it.

While we wouldn't be able to climb the willow in the back until we were older, it quickly became my favorite.  It wasn't until about six feet off the ground that this tree split its trunk, but when it did, it made a space like a little tree house.  It also had numerous branches parallel to the ground that were perfect for gymnastic moves.  Sadly, it is now the last of the willows and all of its large branches have been taken down.  All that is left is that trunk which still rises over six feet off the ground.

Today, my mother purchased and had me attach several boards to the willow as well as a couple of hand-holds and a climbing rope.  My youngest sons and I climbed to the top as I attached them.  It was like visiting an old friend.  While it's more of a large stump than a tree, as well as home to an assortment of bug, the boys and I had a fun climbing it again.  

I'll just have to check my sons for paper wings before they go to play on it.

Dealing with my grandmother's writings yesterday reminded me of why I despise the tobacco industry (and, by extension, the growing marijuana movement).  I blame them for the deaths of both of my grandparents.

My grandfather passed away when my father was a teenager.  According to my father, my grandfather smoked a couple of packs a day.  At the time, it was not only the norm, it was encouraged.  Doctors recommended that their patients smoke as a way to relieve stress.  While other factors no doubt played a role, I place the blame for my grandfather's sudden and deadly heart attack directly on his smoking, which we now know is not only linked to heart disease, but that tobacco companies knew of the link even while promoting cigarettes as a healthy choice.

My grandmother started smoking when she was twelve.  While I remember seeing her smoke when I was younger, as we got older she smoked in front of us less and less frequently.  Her smoking affected her lungs.  Although she outlived my grandfather by about four decades, her greatly diminished health was directly tied to her smoking habit.  She said that she would have quit sooner (or have never started) had she known how miserable her health would become.

While I have held to a vow of not using any mentally affecting drug  as I do not want to become reliant on an outside source for my internal feelings, I do not think that I would have ever taken up smoking.  My grandparents' deaths illustrate two of the most common dooms that await people who choose to smoke: an early death that deprives your loved ones of having you around, and a longer life where you spend decades struggling for breath.

Don't smoke.

While many of my personality traits can be traced directly to my father, I know that many others are from my mother.  My devotion to Christianity is one of the traits that I know comes from here.  My father is a practicing Catholic, but my mother takes her faith to a higher degree, a degree which I am sometimes embarrassed by and sometime envious of.  In truth, following the faith of my mother makes me more a part of the average population than if I didn't.  While children usually benefit from having both parents as a part of their upbringing, it is the faith and love of the mother that most children hold on to through their adulthood. 

This is not a new phenomenon.  Even Emperor Constantine  followed the religious path of his mother despite the fact that doing so decreased the power of the cult of the emperor.  Because of her faith, an entire empire and the course of history changed.  

As our mothers give us life, it only makes sense that we turn to them for questions about existence both in this world and the next.  Despite the fact that many religions show their gods as father figures, it is the mercy of the mother that we seek.  For Catholics, this explains the devotion to Mary as the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven and Earth.  She is the ultimate mother figure, one devoted to her child through His life, His death, and His resurrection.  

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there, and thanks to those who have provided their children with the guidance and love needed to become caring and loving people. 

I couldn't fall to sleep last night.  I had one of those thoughts that refused to allow me to enter the peaceful bliss of my dreams.

I was concerned about the weather, more specifically: my drive to work.  For some reason, I had it in my mind that I would be involved something like one of the horrific accidents that I have seen on my past few drives to school (one was a multiple fatality).  Instead of wondering what my family would do in my absence (which is where my mind usually wanders), in this scenario I "woke up" on my airplane ride to Fairbanks on the way to my first year of college.

As this was a cross between a dream and a thought-experiment, I wondered how I would go about my life this second time around, especially since I now had all of my memories from my "first attempt."  My largest concern was for my children.  Simply knowing about my past experience would make it impossible to duplicate precisely the situations that would bring about my children (at least with the characteristics that I know and love).

This set my mind thinking about the multiple experiences and choices that I have made over the past 22+ years.  Some of them would not need to be repeated (I know which video games and books are worth reading).  Some of them would change my life significantly (this version of myself decided to pursue computer programming--there really isn't any benefit to taking another liberal arts degree if I already have the knowledge from the first one).  I could make changes that might significantly improve my life (investing in Yahoo early, and cashing out before the dot.com bust) and maybe even change the world (such as trying to warn officials, without making it sound like a threat, about the 9/11 attacks).

In my mind, the first person I seek out is Janelle.  Knowing that she will think I'm crazy, I try to convince her of the truth of my situation.  I believe that facts from her past (including some secrets) as well as some tiny pieces of knowledge that I had about the future (though late 1992 was rather bland despite the presidential election, there was also the Branch Davidians in Waco in early 1993) would convince her that I was telling the truth.  Knowing Janelle, I believe that she would even want to stay by my side through whatever craziness this would entail (including her getting pregnant in the second half of her freshman year of college).  

The second person I would entrust is Fr. Jim, although I admittedly would not have the same level of info to convince him of the veracity of my situation.  I would want Janelle and I to marry earlier to avoid some of the housing problems she had that coming summer and fall, and I would need Fr. Jim's help to both make that possible, not to mention needing a person whose advice I have always trusted help me with this situation.

I would entrust my parents, but not my siblings (who would only be high school age or younger at the time) with knowledge about my situation at the first winter break (giving my father investment tips).  I wouldn't trust trying to explain this over a phone call, and the Internet was not yet to Fairbanks (it would get there in early 1993).  Meanwhile, I would work with what I know now to excel at my classes and try to network with people before they become famous and/or wealthy.

I spent hours trying to get my mind off this activity last night and I will not bother you with the minutia.  Needless to say, I wanted to find some way to improve my current life as well as the lives of my family and friends (i.e. Could I warn some people about their upcoming cancer when it could make a difference?  Could anonymous donations from my new wealth give people the proper encouragement without turning them into assholes?).  I also wanted make some efforts to improve our overall world (although how to do so without ending up under government surveillance was an issue).

In the end, I found that a lot of my efforts were focused on trying to recreate my family as it currently is.  Losing my children to the ether of non-existence was a terrifying prospect.  I hope I can sleep better tonight.