Jo-Ann Mapson

Going to the Movies in Alaska

"Why no February essay?" you all have been asking. Well, forget what the poets say about April being the cruelest month; February's always been the tough nut for me. Weird things happen. If I don't get sick, then it's family problems. If my family is level, there's an earthquake. It's a touchy time of year. Generally, I put my head down, try to get through the twenty-eight or twenty-nine days, and when I do, I feel grateful to have made the cut. This year was no different. I lost a lot of writing time (and equilibrium) due to medical tests portending scary outcomes.

On February twenty-eighth, I stood in yet another doctor's office. I'd just been bitched out by the receptionist, and in my humble opinion, people like that need to be removed from society. Life's hard enough when you're in the middle of medical worries without some control freak in your face saying she's afraid you'll fold the intake papers wrong. For once I stood up for myself and told her that rather than deal with her attitude, I'd find another doctor with a kindly receptionist. Nice work, but inside I was quaking and fearful and still needed another doctor appointment. Stewart suggested a movie. Bless his male heart; he believes two hours of movies can cure just about anything. Especially X-Men, his latest favorite. As tactfully as possible, I said, "I think maybe we need a dose of why we moved here in the first place."

So we drove down to Portage along the most beautiful stretch of highway in South-central Alaska. The Turnagain Arm. Cook Inlet.

It's been an unusually light winter. Last year at this time, I was here as a tourist. Deep snow was everywhere. A couple of avalanches along the highway had cut Girdwood off from Anchorage. This year, however, brown grasses lay exposed along the cliffs leading to the arm of water I never grow tired of watching. It's home to beluga whales and steel-colored water. The pristine beachfronts sport deadly mudflats, which discourage foot traffic. They can and have sucked people to their deaths, so they're generally empty. The light on the water is never the same twice. Between the mountains on one side, and the craggy rock face along the highway, I feel as if could stand here forever, taking in a view that always fills me up.

March twenty-ninth, I turn forty-nine. My father died at forty-seven. A good friend died at thirty-five. We're getting to that age where doctors find worrisome test results a mortal concern. I think about women who won't tell their age, and feel baffled. Age means you've survived, that you're here to feel the joy of the world around you. When medical conditions interfere, those numbers become all the more treasured. Age, I think, eventually, is wisdom.

Recently I witnessed the grainy gray view of my insides when I underwent an abdominal ultrasound. There on screen were my problematic kidneys, looking like gordita tortillas, the right appreciably smaller than the left. There also were the lobes of my out-of-whack liver, larger than it seems possible to hold inside my belly. The body's most efficient cleaning system, the spleen, sparkled with what looked like erratically placed stars. The pancreas, of which I once heard a doctor say, "You don't mess with a man's soul and you don't mess with his pancreas," said a reluctant hello from behind the spleen. I couldn't see my gallbladder, because the tech turned me on my side to find it, but when she turned me back, strangest of all, there was my aorta, that tree trunk of the body everyone thinks is only in the heart, for me to admire, the way I look up at redwoods and say, "Good for you. Keep growing. Don't let anyone cut you down."

It was a mysterious movie, particularly since I was watching it because my doctors suspected something was amiss.

But as I lay there watching the wand make its swoops, a calmness came over me, and I felt that whatever the outcome, I could make my peace with it. I've screwed up a lot, but managed to mend some of those disasters. I've had my heart broken, but stapled together it manages to love another. I gave birth. I once loved a barn-sour horse into happy old age. I've fed fish to a killer whale. Dogs have sighed and slept against me, after trusting no one, choosing to trust me. A small group of very special people love me. My worldly accomplishments, like Chinese food, never seem to fill me up the way I'd like them to, but they are real, can't be dismissed, and in terms of my teaching, I feel like I've made a dent in a few lives. And I've gotten to see my insides, a God-like photograph of the organs that manage to work as a team and keep me upright.

So here comes March. Lion or lamb, I don't much care. I'm just happy to turn the calendar pages. Today the Iditarod begins, with a public start in Anchorage, and tomorrow the real start begins in Willow. There's snow on the ground, glittering from the sun shining upon it. The chickadees are stuffing themselves at my feeder. Every once in awhile a magpie galumphs in and steals a beak full of seed. My spoiled-rotten dogs are sleeping in patches of sunlight, surrounded by their toys, and I am at the computer fitting words into a story that can, with the flick of a key, head off in a brand-new direction.

More later,
Jo-Ann

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