The Idea of Alaska

My Dad always said he was going to retire to Alaska. It symbolized freedom, outdoors, nature, renewal. My townbred stepmother wasn't enthusiastic.

By the time Dad retired, he needed heat. He enjoyed soaking up Florida sun, albeit in a cap and long-sleeved shirt and slacks. Dad grew up in Redding, Connecticut when it was rural, with some summer homes of literary people from New York. He worked in a brickyard in New Hampshire as a teenager, and shipped out very young with the US Navy.

Jon King's linking of integrity with the ideal of Alaska interests me. It links up with the idea that we aren't here forever, that our time is short, in some ways, that what we acquire or nest in serves temporary needs, that one day we will be free indeed, free from things, free from our bodies, free from Earth.