I KNOW where I am. How did I get here?

It was about 5 years ago that my girlfriend and potential life partner said to me, “You know, I can do one more year in New York, but I don’t think I can do two.”

Let me put this proclamation in perspective: I have lived in Manhattan since 1969 and it had only occurred to me once to consider living anywhere else… Los Angeles in the 70s. I lasted roughly 6 months and only because I was madly in love with a Broadway musical comedy star who was trying to get a sitcom there, my best gay boyfriend Franklin was willing to come too (don’t ask me to remember why, it was a LONG time ago and it was the 70s) AND I love sun, palm trees, and gorgeous blue skies, all of which Los Angeles circa 74 had.

But despite all these compelling aides to joy, the thought of Christmas in the same sentence with flip-flops made clear that the word panic was a perfect partner to the word attack. I packed a cooler full of Dos Equis and diet soda and jumped in my MGB. Before you could say Dancer/Prancer/Vixen, I was back in my Manhattan rent-controlled apartment, happily dragging a 10 ft Christmas tree, up 5 flights of stairs.

In her defense, my new girl friend had been clear when she fell in love with me and moved-in to our Village apartment: “Hell is a town with more than two stop lights,” “There is nothing that even comes close to wilderness or wide open spaces on the East Coast,” and, “I don’t know how long I can do this but I love you and I really want to try.”

I have been called a “game girl” a “good sport” and I make it a habit to try always to “say YES” no matter how trite and pop-metaphysical that makes me sound, but even my friends who had labeled me “willing” were shocked by my response to the chilling suggestion that we might move, “Ok where do you want to go?”

“Alaska?” she muttered, cringing toward her side of the truck like an abused dog (yes she has a blue pick-up with tires so big, I have to jump to get into it and I THINK IT IS VERY SEXY and no, I have NEVER even thought of hitting her).

And no one was more surprised than me by my answer, “OK.” I said firmly, with an inflection that hinted I might even be excited about what came next.

I have lived in Juneau, Alaska for the last four years.

And now, as anyone who’s paid attention must have seen coming, I am overdue for a little proclaiming of my own. Standing knee deep in slush, heaving snow off our January driveway with my girlfriend, “Shovelina”, I blurt, “Honey, I’m DONE! Stick me with a fork I am so done.”

She, of the calm presentation, would have stopped there. I continued, “I am done with being apart for weeks and snow that starts in October and ends…does it end, ever? I’m done with all the flying and sleeping alone…”

So, in the midnight blue afternoon, with the fat flakes falling, to the endless accompaniment of metal scraping ice from concrete, the discussion that eventually resulted in our decision to leave Alaska and go back to New York (it’s temporary) began.

How have I managed 4 years in Alaska while working with clients in New York, Europe, and the Middle East, a rent stabilized apartment and a generalized anxiety disorder, specifically triggered by riding in airplanes whose wings appear to be coming off…?

How have I paddled through water so cold icebergs hang around all summer, forgetting to melt and learned to live with bears (New York was good practice for not being the top of the food chain), NOT TO MENTION living through a national election which introduced the world (oh, the shame of it) to Sarah Palin, www.Conservatives4Palin.com the hillbilly-ninja Governor of Alaska?…that’s for the next post.