Is it something in the air?

So there we were, staring intermittently at each other and at the shimmering little car as it sat in a muddy lot just feet from the Arctic Ocean. Kids of all ages scampered around with rags, hoses, rocks and candy. Some had been cleaning the car; others had been more intent splashing in the muddy puddles created by the event. The car wash was a benefit for the Barrow Dancers to raise money for their trip to perform at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics in Anchorage, and dancers of all ages were there to help, each in his own way, on this sunny Barrow afternoon.

A young mother popped in and out of a door onto a fire escape on the second floor of the Top of the World Hotel. The hose also came from that door and I assumed she was working the water. Another seemed to be the one taking the money, and a couple young grandmothers were constantly chasing toddlers and other youngsters from puddles, buckets and other places that were more interesting than safe. Of course, Luke was compelled to join the exploration, and so I joined the grandmothers in their chase. A few elders sat watching from the shade, it was in the mid-50’s that afternoon, and a handful of grade school to high school age kids brandished rags, sponges and towels in an effort to help me discover what color paint was under the months of dirt caked to our car.

Their efforts had tapered from intermittent to sporadic when the young man, maybe in his late twenties, and I began exchanging discreet glances. He had done the bulk of the work on the car with a large brush on a broomstick and seemed to be the one in charge of the car washing part of the operation. I glanced at him to see if I could tell if they were finished. He returned a quick glance as if to say, “Yo, we’re done.” Or was it, “yo, be patient, I’ll tell you when we’re done.” Confused, I glanced back, “huh?” He returned another indecipherable glance. “Don’t you get it, Taniq?” I thought. Or maybe he was asking if they had done a good enough job.

The car looked fine to me. With no paved roads in the whole town, the $20 I gave them to spend in Anchorage would last longer than the car wash anyway, so of course the wash was good enough. But now my mind was in hyper drive. Was he trying to tell me they were finished with those glances? Or was he asking me if the job was satisfactory? I’m sure my confused glances could have signaled that I wasn’t content about his glance about being finished. Is there some deeper meaning of these kinds of glances? Did I cross some cultural line with my glances or how I received his glances? When could we be finished with the glancing?

An Inupiat friend once told me that traditionally, Inupiat do not verbalize “no.” They will blink both eyes and then say something affirmative or positive, but their answer is still ‘no.’ If blinking both eyes signifies “no,” then what might these subtle glances at the car wash mean? I couldn’t keep glancing. I decided to risk being the pushy outsider and ask if the car was ready. He nodded, and I thanked him, grabbed Luke and headed down the road.

It didn’t take long before it hit me. Something about this place seriously piques my senses and stimulates my mind. If there was anything to the glances, I likely made it up in my head. But what is it about living in this village 330 miles above the Arctic Circle that gets my mind going like that?

Maybe it’s the stimulation of being a member of a cultural minority for the first time—a newcomer to an ancient culture only half-cloaked in the clapboard houses, litter and not-so-durable goods of the West. This place is so foreign—from the culture to the environment—that not a day goes by when I don’t find my mind wandering on thoughts or questions that I never could have imagined in the mass market worlds from which I came.

Is it the air? The air here is so fresh that, while traveling south of town on a friend’s boat about fifty yards offshore, I could smell the cigarette lit by a man on the beach in time to watch him pull the lighter away from his face. On that same trip, we came across a group of sod houses on a bluff above the beach, some still scattered with human bones from possibly hundreds of years ago. Get that on your interstate commute home from work?

Is it the sun? A few months ago the sun circled overhead for 84 days straight, but even then its trajectory changed each day and dramatically so in the first and last weeks of those 84 darkless nights. Now, in mid-September, we’re losing 10 minutes of daylight every day.

Is it the tundra that changes from snowy white to brown, to green, to red, to yellow and back again to white in three and a half months? Or is it the ocean that was almost indiscernible from the snow-covered land only a few months ago, is now placid blue and ice-free, and in another couple months will again regain its icy grasp of the shore? Or is it the thousands of birds that descend on the tundra each spring, fill their bellies, have their babies and leave again all in a few short months? Or the gray whales who come to feed in the Arctic Ocean and scrape the parasites from their skin on the same beaches where Luke and I play, local teenagers build bonfires and petrified bones and driftwood from ancient forests wash ashore?

More likely, it is the lack of distraction that frees my mind and sends it spinning in torrents so unanticipated that each whirl sparks another five. There are no billboards, inviting storefronts or any other of the myriad of marketing gimmicks that are inescapable in the lower-48. There are no mountains to scan for dreamy ski runs or climbing routes, and there is no traffic or other frustrations to make life more hectic than it needs to be. We generally have what we need and have learned not to fret over what we can’t get. The stark environment and absolute remoteness force life to be slow and quiet here, and that leaves plenty of time for a brain to run wild.

But when I look at Luke, I realize that maybe it’s just me, or me getting older. My glances with the car washing dancer were nothing compared to the candy wrapper in the dirt to Luke. Sure, Luke has plenty of stimulation here. He’s amazingly interested in the chunk of wax he broke from the candle, and he finds enough fun in the toys, books and cabinets to keep him going non-stop from the time he wakes until his afternoon nap and then again until bedtime. He loves playing with his friends at the playgrounds or in the gym, and not much beats climbing on the chairs, the couch, and even into his high chair (gasp!).
He even loves examining the stones on the beach and the dried pea that got away from him at lunch that is now curiously on the floor in the living room. But as stimulating as life in Barrow is for a toddler like Luke, it just doesn’t compare to, say, Chinatown.

On our recent trip to San Francisco, Layla and I took Luke for a walk through Chinatown and up to the Coit Tower. Although we had preemptively restrained his body in the baby backpack, we couldn’t contain his eyes. When we hit the trinket mania and open market mayhem, Luke’s eyes bulged the whole time as if a little clown inside his head was squeezing little brown and white balloons through his eye sockets. I could almost see the wheels inside his head spinning off their axles with each passing tassled lamp, and the aromas of five-spice and roast meat barely overpowered the smell synapses forging new connections in his brain. The constant chatter in five or fifteen different languages and the clanging bells of passing streetcars kept his head swiveling from one colorful scene to the next. He liked it so much I took him there again the next day, just to watch him soak it all in.

Ok, so for now a box of plastic Buddhas are more exciting to Luke than a 35 ton whale and its calf two steps and an icy plunge away from the stroller, and like most parents at Disneyland, I’m realizing that a person’s inspiration definitely changes with age. I can only imagine what Luke will think of Chinatown when he’s old enough to know what the Samurai swords, Peking duck and toy snakes really are. And I can only hope that when he’s old enough to appreciate the mental playground of natural wonders and places like Barrow that he’ll be able to find them.