Chinook

A Chinook is sweeping over Interior Alaska tonight. Last week this time, it was -45 and tonight at our home on the edge of the Alaska wilderness it is 35. The wind smells like seashells and turquoise water. The dogs and their people are crazed with the sudden warmth. Kayt spent the day under the house with The Plumber, Saint Plumber, come to fix our pipes. He ended up breaking the connection so now we went from having little water to having none. But we are entranced with The Plumber, and we are used to coping with no water, so life is still Good. A little wearing, perhaps, but good nonetheless.

Kayt continues to work on her article for the Hawaii conference, and that alone spurs us to dream of warmth, of turquoise waters, of Chinooks... The snow underfoot tonight collapses into ice beneath our heels. All of us potty outside, given that we have no water inside. The warm wind shivers the spruce, tickles the wind chimes. Kayt noticed the ice shine on the birches earlier in the evening, but even the ice is gone now with the Chinook. An entity, like the cold, this mysterious Chinook who has come to bless us with Her warm breath.