mental-health – Lofty Minded in Alaska

A June Letter

Hello everyone,

It’s Thursday morning as I’m sitting down to write this, and as usual I’m not sure where this letter is going to lead. I just know that my days got very full in the last month and sitting down to write a leisurely letter feels a little contrary to the demands of our business, which requires quite a lot from us this time of year. Still though, I see this letter writing as a practice and so I’m taking a deep breath, putting the business and garden chores aside for a couple of hours, and coming back to one of my favorite places, which is in front of a blank page.

How are you? Has anything interesting transpired in your life since I last wrote you in May? I hope that anything that may have come about is interesting in a good way. I know it can go either way.

Here, we’ve literally gone from winter to summer with the summer part really only starting just a couple of weeks ago. Winter was especially cold this year, and it dragged on for an awfully long time and while I aspire to be one of those people who takes whatever Alaska throws at us in stride, I was beginning to despair a bit. Now things are greening up and even though our garden looks a little stunted, it’s at least in the ground and no longer in danger of freezing. I’ve mostly stopped fantasizing about moving to New Mexico, too, now that we’ve had a handful of days in which we haven’t had to light a fire in our wood stove.

I don’t mean to complain. It’s just that sometimes I struggle with the coastal Alaskan climate. I don’t want that to be the case, but it’s reality. There’s a certain fortitude that living here brings out, and in that sense it pushes me to be strong, to dig deep, to put on the right gear and get myself outside in spite of the weather, but sometimes I just want the sun.

A peek inside our sweet little greenhouse.

I’m sure the climate here has shaped me, that the inconvenience of living a rural life of burning wood for heat and hauling drinking water has effected the way I view the world. I know the distance from extended family has granted me the opportunity to know myself in ways I couldn’t have had I not moved up here as a young adult. I wonder how the vastness of it all has influenced my perspective. Who was that 24-year old person that came up here all those years ago? While I’m sure there are personality traits that haven’t changed since then, there are parts of the younger me that I hardly recognize anymore. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to stay, even when it gets hard. The challenges of this place are worth something. They’ve helped me come to know myself.

It would have happened no matter where I landed, and that’s what makes the idea of up and moving seem appealing at times. What aspects of myself might I come to know in a different environment?

I’m curious to know what places, what people, what experiences have shaped you? What has changed you the most? What fundamental parts of yourself carry through, no matter who you’re with or where you’re at?

Several years ago I was semi-obsessed with learning to play old-time fiddle and it was my first real deep dive. Do you know the kind of deep dive I’m talking about? The kind that keeps you awake at night thinking about it? The kind that makes you lose track of time? The kind you organize your days around? Until then, I’d never experienced anything close to what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi termed flow. If I picked up my fiddle, I’d have to set the timer so I wouldn’t be late to pick my kids up from school. I had to be strict with my boundaries about when and how long I’d play so that other parts of my life wouldn’t fall apart. I went to fiddle camp every summer for a few years, and I took every opportunity I could to play tunes with other people. Love for the music and the opportunities to play with other people kept me going, but the deep dive itself filled a need I had at that time in my life.

When I was deep in it I couldn’t imagine that my obsession would fade, but gradually it did. I bring this up now because last week I picked my fiddle up again for the first time in several months. Every time I return to it after a long hiatus I expect to be discouraged, but memory is a remarkable thing and usually I end up feeling pleasantly surprised that whatever gains I made back in the day are still there. The difference is that fiddle playing used to be a social thing for me and now it’s more of an isolated endeavor, and that social piece of it used to be a driving force. I’d practice like mad because I wanted to play well with other people. Now I have to figure out where it fits into my life. I’m still sorting that out, but in the meantime I’ve decided to choose a handful of new tunes to learn. My brain craves the deep focus that learning fiddle tunes offers, so I’ll start there.

And why is it always in the summertime, when there are a million other things going on, that I feel most inspired to play music again? Maybe it’s the manic energy that comes from so much daylight. Maybe it’s because I have so many great memories of playing outdoors with friends in the summer months. Maybe it’s when my brain most needs those moments of deep focus to bring me back into myself. Whatever it is, I’m happy to be playing again.

And speaking of flow and deep focus, writing is the other thing that pulls me in and makes me lose track of time. So I remind myself that this is a letter and not a book.

One of our many Rhodiola plants that is not bothered in the least by our long and cold winters.

What else? I’m currently reading the novel Buckeye, by Patrick Ryan. This particular story takes place during WWII and the years after it ends, and one of the characters in it helps facilitate communication with the dead, which is a topic that fascinates me. There was a scene I just read last night in which this character was visited by a recently-passed friend in a dream. It stuck out to me because I experienced a similar dream last week.

When I was in Colorado for my sister’s memorial service, I learned that a dear friend here in Homer had died and the news hit me hard. We weren’t best friends and we would go long periods of time without seeing each other, but she was a dear friend nonetheless. Our kids grew up together and attended each other’s birthday parties. Our daughters danced together in the Nutcracker. Many years ago we hired a water taxi to take us across the bay for an afternoon of blueberry picking. We each came home with a five gallon bucket full of berries to freeze for the winter. When I heard that she was gone I wished so much that I’d had an opportunity to say goodbye.

But then I had this dream in which she came to talk with me. It felt as real as all the times I ran into her around town. In this dream visit we chatted, we went for a drive together, we acknowledged our friendship, and it made me feel better for not having seen her again before she passed. My friend Ben has popped into my dreams a couple of times, too, to catch up and to remind me that even though he’s dead he’s not fully gone. It’s a mystery that could just be my subconscious mind trying to bring order to things I’ve had a hard time accepting or it could be something more. Either way, these dreams have offered me something valuable and it doesn’t really matter that I can’t explain them with any amount of certainty.

Have any of you had similar dreams or experiences?

Anyhow, that’s a bit of what’s been up with me these last few weeks and I really do need to wrap this up now as the timer I set for myself has just gone off. I hope all is well with you and that your summer is off to a good start. I also hope that you’re making the time to do something that enriches your life and enlivens your soul. And I’d love to know what that is, if you’re willing to share.

Thank you for being out there and for reading another one of my letters. It’s a connection I value very much.

Before signing off completely, I’ll leave you with just a couple more things. First here is a video of three of my fiddle camp teachers playing one of my favorite tunes. Sadly, Trevor, the fiddle player, is no longer with us, but his music lives on and still inspires.

And here’s a poem by Matt Moberg that I came across on Facebook last week that has stuck with me. I found a version of it on another website so those of you who aren’t on Facebook can enjoy it as well. It really is worth the time it takes to read it.

https://pattidigh.substack.com/p/poetry-wednesday-every-human-being

Wishing for you a lovely stretch of time between now and my next letter.

With love,

Teresa

February 2026: A Snow Moon Letter

Dear Friends,

Since my last letter, I’ve received so many kind notes and in-person condolences. I’ve had phone messages and emails and a few hugs that cut through all the layers of talk and went straight to the heart. Something inside me must have known that I needed all of that, but now I know for sure that I did. To not feel alone, to not have to carry the heaviness of loss on my own, to know that grief is something we all share… it’s made me feel like I’ve got a place among you, and what we all need is to belong. So, thank you.

It’s an interesting thing that I’m doing, writing a letter to anyone who will read it, and I’m still trying to figure out why I feel compelled to do this. Maybe it’s an experiment in community. Maybe it’s just a free form way for me to write when I don’t always know what I want to say. Maybe it’s me reaching out a hand in invitation, saying, let’s do this thing together, let’s find something in common, let’s go wherever this takes us.

I don’t know why it took me so long to discover this, but in the last couple of years I’ve learned that I have a hard time looking people in the eye. I can have a conversation with just about anyone, and obviously I’m not afraid of sharing things about myself with others, but looking at someone else’s eyeballs kind of freaks me out. I watch people’s mouths when I talk to them and if I happen to make eye contact it almost stings. I immediately avert my gaze. Since becoming aware of this I’ve been working on looking at peoples’ eyes when I talk to them, but it’s not an easy thing for me to do. It feels like a fragility on my part. What is it I’m afraid of seeing? What is it that I’m afraid others might see in me?

There’s that whole notion of eyes being the window into another person’s soul, and I think there might be something to that, and that might just be what’s jarring to me about looking someone in the eye. When I make eye contact with another person, I sense that there’s an energetic connection, like a spark, and it startles me. Maybe I need to learn to stay in that uncomfortable space until it’s no longer uncomfortable. Maybe I need to learn to trust myself with that kind of energetic exchange because it feels kind of powerful. I’m curious to know if anyone else experiences this.

I think I’m going down this rabbit hole because writing these letters feels a lot like baring my soul, and yet it doesn’t freak me out. Maybe letter writing is my love language. Maybe it’s my attempt to make eye contact.

Anyhow, I hope there is something about these letters that makes you feel seen.

It’s been more than a couple of weeks now since that life-altering day I wrote about in my last letter. Without a dog, our house is quiet in a way it hasn’t been in the 35 years that Dean and I have been married. The temptation is to rush out and get another puppy but we’re trying to make ourselves wait a while. There are a few trips we’d like to take before we take on the responsibility of another dog, and this kind of quiet might actually be good for us to experience. At least that’s what we’re telling ourselves.

Also in the two weeks since I last wrote you, I’ve been to Florida and back. I’m still recovering from the trip and feeling a little raw from the mix of emotions that came from gathering with family to say goodbye to my nephew. After being with his mom and sisters and attending his memorial, I know more about him now than I knew before. The thing I heard over and over again from his family and friends is that Ellijah was a person who showed up for other people. When people needed him, he was there. It made me think about the people in my life who show up and it made me think about what it means to be a person who shows up.

I went to Florida because I needed to go, and somehow I thought that need was for my sister and her girls. In retrospect though, I needed to go for myself. I needed to remind myself that I belong to a family. We all started out in Colorado together, but over time we’ve scattered around the country. We’ve moved away from each other in non-geographic ways as well – politically, religiously, culturally – but when we were all in a room together I felt at home, and at peace. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did.

One highlight of the weekend was when we gathered for brunch the day after Ellijah’s memorial. Cousins, sisters, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, parents, grandparents, friends, brothers, aunts, uncles all together around one long table. The little boys ran around the table with their toy car and dinosaur, and my niece’s beautiful baby got passed around to anyone who wanted a turn holding her. The waitstaff at the restaurant were endlessly patient with us, and kind, and for a few hours we had the time to just be together. None of us took it for granted, because who knows how much time will pass before we’re all able to share space like that again.

It’s mysterious the way things work; that tragedies can bring about healing, that new and beautiful relationships can blossom after loss, that priorities can come into focus when your heart is broken. It’s true personally and I have to hope that it’s true collectively.

And how are you holding up? What are you doing to take care of yourself these days? Do you have any good books to recommend? Any podcasts or music that’s helping you get through the intensity of this particular moment in time? I started listening to The Overstory by Richard Powers when I was traveling. It’s been recommended to me more times than I can count but I put it off because I haven’t been drawn to reading much fiction over the past few years. Of course it’s as good as everyone said it is and the writing is a miracle. Maybe it will launch me back into a fiction reading phase again. I hope so.

We’re in the middle of a dreary weather pattern here with no sunshine icons at all in the ten day weather forecast. I’ll try to dig deep and find some of that inner light to get me through; lots of hot tea, yoga, jumping on the rebounder I bought last winter, and as many beach walks as I can fit in. It’s a good time for garden planning and tea packaging, and of course for writing. We’re halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox now and we’re gaining almost five minutes of daylight every day-even if it is behind a thick layer of clouds. Already our slow days of winter are feeling numbered, so I might as well embrace them.

Have I told you yet that I appreciate you reading these letters? I hope this one finds you engaged in something meaningful and encouraged about some aspect of your life. I hope it finds you rising above the intensity of current events. I hope it finds you well-cared-for and well-fed and at peace. But if you’re not feeling or doing your best, that’s okay, too. Don’t be hard on yourself. Let yourself rest. Know that I’m rooting for you.

Thank you for being out there and for reading my ramblings, and if you feel so inclined, I’d love to hear from you. And if this letter encourages you to reach out to someone else, that’d be cool too.

Take good care until next time.

With love,

Teresa

And just a few more things:

*I’d love to share these letters with as many friends as possible, so please feel free to share this with some of your friends. Also, if you’re not already subscribed to receive an email every time I publish, please consider doing so. It’s free and will remain so.

* The family brunch I described above reminded me of this song and it’s been playing in my head ever since. ‘Crowded Table’ by The Highwomen. You might enjoy it, too.

*I’m a sucker for note cards and stationary and just because I write these letters online doesn’t mean I won’t find an excuse to go to the Homer Bookstore and buy pretty things to write on.