one hundred [and eighty] degrees. difference.

Last week it was so cold that particulates (as local commercials refer to the disgusting throat-gagging dirt pieces from exhaust floating around our clean "last frontier" air) landed on every visible thing...street signs, light posts, fences, stoplights, tree trunks, car windshields and branches. The branches in return took on this droopy 'weight of the world' look that was neither sad nor happy but at least a bit beautiful and set against the sunset on a clear early afternoon could make one feel they were living in at the tippy-top of Earth. Like Antarctica. Or another planet certainly. Which was cool.

But that was the only cool thing about the weather of last week...and the two weeks preceding it...because at record numbers of consecutive days in the negative-thirties-to-fifties, every human being was edgy. And that's putting it lightly. Trapped inside our one-hall-wide-by-two-floor-high school building to start off 2009, for example, my students had to "walk a mile" around the school during recess every day and get the wiggles out....up the stairs down the hallway, down the other stairs and along the lower hallway to go, you guessed it, back up the stairs again. Ten lap loop.

It is needless to say the term 'cabin fever' took on new meaning.

Then, as if from above someone was watching our little lemming-esque misery with empathy and had finally decided to intervene, the cold cap on the sky that was keeping all those things frozen, leaving us like the inhabitants of a literal snow globe, just lifted off and let some freakin' warmth come in. And sunshine too.

Instead now its too warm to behold...three days so far at thirty-to-fifty above. We all take time to recognize that in degrees that's a hundred points difference. Or in other words, the weather did a 180° . The air is light and fresh with smells pleasant, natural, blooming. People clean out their cars, shovel the driveway, throw on some skis and a hat and glide down the trails. No need for snow pants, down coats, long underwear, sixteen layers, suiting up, warming up, or plugging in. It feels strangely like "break up and thaw" time (late March or early April) as cars slide across slick melted roads, and snow slurps off metal roofs forming icy mounds around our homes. Our confidence in living here may be slightly revitalized.

But I think we're all a bit confused biologically...our bodies can't help but think that we are out of the trenches. 'Spring is coming!' our minds and souls exclaim. But calendars show the glaring truth: it's only January. Almanacs point out the obvious: the heart of winter is just around the corner....February's often the worst. And we find ourselves dreading the next move in the game to which we are pawns.

What I realized today about the limits the Alaska-winter darkness and cold can impose is that these really have to do with space. The cold cap which will inevitably return to finish its yearly stint keeps our minds, souls and psyches contained. What is out there, we do not know. We forget the smells, the images, the colors, the infinite distance that surrounds us, for we cannot often even see our hand in front of our face. And if we can, its wearing a glove. And we saw it with our headlamp on. Our toes hide in socks day in and day out (even while sleeping), our bellies, our elbows, our knees, our cheeks both north and south lose the remembrance of sun's rays and air's heat. Our skin's screams are muffled by fabrics in abundant layers. Its rather claustrophobic.

When all the days of frigid and dark let up, I'm reminded the ultimate reward of living here is being able to climb a mountain, find a dome, or scale a boulder to look out at the earth from a new view...to place oneself atop something and spin around one hundred and eighty degrees to see the expanse of space before you. And remember what all the other stuff is for.

Square tires, ice fog and EPA air quality advisories! Oh my!

About five days ago the weather took a turn for the worse. By now I'd say it's dipped down to negative fifty, as in -50...numerically, at night in the valley where my little heat-box cabin lies. Despite the makeshift plastic window sheaths I have fashioned, frost is overtaking my cabin via all the exits...sneaking in underneath the "airtight" door, sticking around the edges of the windows and onto the sills and frames, freezing over the very screws that hold these key components in place. They look like little ice cookies. M&M's. Not nearly as exciting. I suppose this is the payback I get for minimalizing the extreme-ness that winter could muster back when it was a mild -22.

Well, I surrender...I've been one-upped.

I had always heard scary terms from Fairbanks' year-rounders like "ice fog" and "square tires" as I kept up my 'summer only' persona over the last two years. Well, now these notions are no longer tall tales. I have seen, and felt, them first hand. The latter is reminiscent of the Flintstones' (auto)mobile, save having to pedal my bare feet extremely fast against the naked ground to propel the structure forward. After an eight hour shift at the book store/cafe though, alleviated by fifteen minutes of warming up the guts of my treasured jeep cherokee as I fidget like a lady-in-waiting that it may deliver me safely home, I unplug the heating mechanisms from the outlet, hop inside, and put the pedal gently down. Thwump! thuw-thuw-thuw-thuw! Square tires indeed.

After a few minutes of 'burning rubber' the tires remember their previous form and soften just a little. By the time I get back home they are finally ready for the task of rolling. I guess, better late than never.

If I take the highway home past the train yard and "industrial alley" to use the term loosely, I get to pass through frozen exhaust, hovering eerily around the lightposts and other structures, just a few feet above my trusty car. It is odd, ghostly, awe-inducing, and like a bad accident, crime scene or horror movie I want to see more. Only with my hands over my eyes, fingers cracked for peeping through. Just a bit. And from the comfort of a heated car, café, home. The fumes spewed out of mufflers from backs of cars and diesel trucks, emanating from trains, factories, and various industrial buildings seem to freeze and float in space, as if someone were privy to a giant fog machine and infiltrating our arctic stage. It's cool. But, oh my! It's toxic.

When walking out of some fine establishment where down-clad winter brave-hearts escape from their one-roomers and vacation families, say Fred Meyer (think Wal-Mart) or Wal-Mart (think K-Mart plus groceries) the smell of diesel tickles the nose. Gags the throat. Many leave their cars locked and running for far too long in my opinion, utilizing such luxuries as "autostart" or spare key sets at the very least. I was not surprised to hear my favorite NPR host remind those of Fairbanks proper of the critical air quality advisory....if one was thinking of going on an outdoor excursion it is ill-advised due to polution levels in the air. (Not to mention the fact its INCREDIBLY COLD). But it turns out this is further exacerbated by the waste from wood-burning stoves to the Nth degree...to levels that set EPA running north to rectify the air if Fairbanks can't do so alone. And fast.

Something tells me this scenario plays out each year.

Surprisingly, the winter air and I have remained on the same team though. I'd greet it briefly and cordially on trips to my outhouse or to run the car a while...I'd even embrace it on short walks between my brother's house and mine, wearing socks, pants, capilenes, more socks, a sweater, a fleece, a thermal top, a hat, two hoods, sorels, my trusty headlamp and a scarf around the face to reveal only my eyes for navigating. Oh and two pairs of gloves.

Today, however, Old Man Winter has taken this thing to the next level. He took my car, froze its guts and left me stranded in my heat-box for an undetermined amount of time. Today this winter stuff is a bully and I no longer in control...next topic: "cabin fever"!