At just about twenty-one weeks, she’s the size of a banana, or an heirloom tomato, or a grapefruit, depending on which week-by-week description you read online.

Our journey to this exciting place has been a long one. We talked about becoming parents early in our relationship, but because of differences in age and temperament, the answer then was “not now.”

Instead we moved from Michigan to an apartment in Anchorage, and Liesl began classes in aviation maintenance. A year later we moved to a house in Eagle River, and then in 2009 we moved to Girdwood, where Liesl had found work as a mechanic.

Then a few years ago, two of my doctors asked, on separate occasions, “Do you want to have children?” This time, our answer was, “Well, maybe.”

Many long conversations later, we were ready to say, “Let’s try.”

As I’m sure you can imagine, “trying” was much less exciting—and much more expensive—than it is for straight, fertile couples. But it has its own magic—the magic of science, I’ve started calling it.

We’ve had wonderful medical care, both here and in Seattle; some of you, when you heard the news, said, “Aha! That explains it. All those trips to the doctor—and visits to Seattle.”

Now that I’ve broken the news here, I hope to write more about this amazing experience of creating a whole new person; holding this secret has contributed, I believe, to my bad case of blogger’s block. At least, that’s what I’ve told myself!

Photo by Robin_24

It was closer to one a.m. this past Sunday (well, Monday, really) when I began to wonder what time the inauguration would start. A quick Google gave me the unwelcome news: eleven in the morning. Eastern Time. Seven o’clock here in Alaska. I set my alarm for 6:55.

The next morning, as I stumbled from bed to couch, I wondered, “Why is this so important to me?”

Not quite awake, and freely associating, I thought about my grandfather, my father’s father.

A staunch believer in the tenets of his Plymouth Brethren faith, my grandfather Herbert thought of himself as a citizen of heaven. As such, he did not vote. A conscientious objector during World War II, he served as an ambulance driver instead of heading off to war.

But if you looked at my grandfather more closely, if you saw past his insistence that he was a stranger and an alien in this world, you would find a very patriotic American, one who love all the pomp, pageantry, history and ritual of the country he claimed was not his own.

I remember going with him to see the tall ships in New York during the Bicentennial in 1976.

Over the years, we went to countless Revolutionary War reenactments. I still have a musket-ball pendant strung on a strip of suede from one of those outings.

We attended Christmas concerts at the Ford Mansion in Morristown, one of George Washington’s headquarters during the revolution, where all the performers dressed in period costume.

His covert citizenship was even stronger on the local level; it felt like most of Woodbridge knew Herb Christensen. As one of the owners of Christensen’s Department Store, the anchor store on Main Street, he forged deep connections with customers, and with retailers up and down the street. I grew up listening to stories about how Christensen’s had survived the Great Depression, and how they had helped their customers survive, too.

He was a quietly gregarious man, someone who loved one-on-one conversations. As I watched him interact with customers, with fellow attendees at a basketball game, with the mayor, with the person in the next lawn chair at Independence Day parades, his manner contradicted his separatist theological beliefs. For all his words about the next life being more important than this one, his actions showed him to be a man who loved living in this world.

I think it was his spirit, alive in me, that propelled me out of bed on Monday morning.

In my journey from the Plymouth Brethren to Unitarian Universalism, I have abandoned much that connects me to my past. When I discover treasures that are still with me, when I reclaim my history, I feel grounded, stronger, more whole.

At the same time, I am grateful for the freedom I have found as a UU—freedom that allows me to savor this world unapologetically.

The irony is that, too often, I don’t. Too often I let pain and loss keep me from engaging, from choosing to connect, from loving this world and its people.

But patriotism is not my grandfather’s only gift to me. I also inherited his quiet gregariousness, his love of conversation.

My sociability has been dinged up a bit—by years living as a strong-minded, not-straight woman in a fundamentalist, patriarchal system—but it’s still there.

And it’s what I bring to the work of being a citizen of this world—building relationships, catalyzing ideas, one conversation at a time.

Photo by cliff1066

After summer solstice, I begin a leisurely walk downhill. The slope is gradual. Not something I notice at all.  Feels like level ground. So easy.

But after winter solstice, something happens.

I wake up, and look behind me. I see how far, how deep into the valley I’ve walked.

I look ahead, and the path out of the valley seems long, and somehow steeper.

Some people say, “Get out more.  Be more social. Use a happy lamp. Get more exercise.”

There’s some truth there. Particularly here in Alaska, it’s dangerous to be naïve about the darkness of winter. Valleys can become seemingly inescapable canyons.

But there’s also something to be said for following the terrain of the seasons, for living like a bear—gorging on summer’s abundance, sleeping through winter’s deprivation.

I really, truly don’t know.

I do know that right now I’m on the uphill path, walking out of the valley into the light.

How about you?

Photo by Gretchen Fitzenrider

The sun emerges from behind a ridge on the left half of the window, and disappears behind another ridge on right half.

As days pass, the distance between sunrise and sunset shrinks, as does the window of daylight.

I’ve always lived in places where autumn was a long slide into darkness, but never has that come into sharper focus than it has here in Alaska.

When the sun comes over the ridge in late morning, I open wide the thermal drapes in that south facing window, savoring every moment of light on clear days.

When the sun disappears behind the ridge, I close the curtains tight, preserving the condo’s warmth.

What I’ve learned, living here, is that light is a treasure.

As daylight diminishes every day, I grieve, and hunger for Solstice. When Solstice finally comes, I celebrate the rising momentum of joy.

In these days of darkness, may we rejoice in each ray of light.

My cousin Marilyn, who lives in NJ, gave me permission to share her response.

It’s true.

I’ve been staying in a hotel (2 bedroom 2 bathroom suite with kitchen and sitting room) since a car crashed through our house Oct. 5th. This turned out to be helpful during the storm, as I’ve seen people come in literally begging for rooms and there is a three-page waiting list.

The cleaning lady, Carmen, has been diligently toiling from about 7:30 a.m. till well after 8 p.m., cleaning lazy people’s rooms, making their beds, providing them with coffee, towels, soap, etc. I found out she herself has been without power or heat since 8 p.m. the night of the storm, yet she has to come and wait hand and foot on lazy people who can’t even make their own beds or hang up their own towels to dry. I borrow cleaning supplies from her because she has enough to do—two other housekeeping staff have not been able to make it in. It’s a 4-floor hotel.

Last night I offered her some sterno, candles, and canned Progresso soup to take home, and she took it right away. Her willingness to accept it told me how cold and difficult it must be for her, to go home from work each night to a cold bed, cold food, and cold shower. Yet, she’s here for 12-hour shifts, waiting on those who are living in comfort and luxury.

October 1979 (Colonia, NJ)

Earlier this year, I wrote this about being a “Jersey girl.”

We lived in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, a short train ride from New York City. . . . [Growing] up in New Jersey is part of who I am. I’ll always search for a tomato that tastes like the ones I remember. I’ll always remember our annual U-Pick pilgrimages—strawberries in June, blueberries in July, peaches in August, apples in September. My skin carries the memory of sunburns from the Jersey shore. In my 1989 high school graduation photo, I have the “mall hair” that was so emblematic of that time and place.

Here in Alaska, I’m a long way from my hometown in the Garden State. But images of Sandy’s devastation bring back memories of familiar places in New Jersey and New York City—places now dramatically altered.

My friends and family are safe and sound, though their lives have been turned upside-down.

My friend Rachel drove to Pennsylvania today—just to get gas.

My mother, just home from charging her phone at a friend’s house, told me that her windows are really dirty—and salty. Apparently it was raining saltwater during the storm.

After our short conversation, she called me back to tell me about rail cars pushed off their wheels, stranded on the New Jersey Turnpike.

“Is this the worst storm you’ve ever been through?” I asked her.  ”Yes,” she said.

And that’s how it is for someone without power, but who has not only plenty of water, but hot water as well.  It’s much worse for others in New Jersey, and throughout the region.

If you want to help, both FEMA and the Red Cross say that cash donations are best.  Blood donations are also needed, since the storm disrupted planned blood drives.

The poll workers were very friendly.  The woman monitoring the ballot box thanked each of us for voting—and sounded like she meant it.

We were far from alone.  As we were leaving, Liesl said, “It’s really busy here today!”

I’m glad people are taking their responsibilities as citizens seriously. Every year when I vote, it washes off a little of my generational cynicism.  It feels good.

One of the reasons for my smile in this picture—in addition to the kindness of the poll-worker who volunteered to snap it—was that I had just done my first write-in vote. I voted for one of the smartest, most responsible, most competent people I know.

Liesl wrote in Oscar the Grouch.  Oscar’s her favorite, she says, and Big Bird has become too much of a cliché.

And yes, we both got “I voted” stickers.

So what about you? Have you voted yet?

I walked away from the computer, and when I returned, the responses had started rolling in.

Four people simply said, “Yes.”  Others said:

• Yep, and I like it much better. I actually keep in contact more often now that there is email and FB. I have a hard time remembering to call people during normal daytime hours so this way I can still contact people.
• Absolutely. For casual comments and questions, I text. So do most of my friends. I do talk with my sons on the phone once a week, and with a dear friend in Boston every few weeks, but we see each other on FB more often than that. Mostly, I think of the phone as for businessy sorts of things or for emergencies.
• No, but I’m not sure if that is because I moved across the country. I call a lot—I think I probably spend maybe 3 hours on the phone a week? The internet adds more communication with folks than I otherwise would have, and I like that. I might also not be of the right generation to ask, because the internet came up around the time I would have had phone privileges as a kid.
• Less on the phone. I really don’t think that is a good thing. Life has become more complicated. It’s a shame, as I think our relationships have suffered because we have too much one-way communication. E-mail is efficient, but isolating.
• Yes, but when I do talk on the phone, it is usually a planned call to a family member or close friend and we talk for hours…
• Work, I use skype or google hang out quite a bit, but still phone as well. Friends and family, long distance, I use skype or google hang out. Local friends I use phone to arrange to see face to face. My 16 year old, I text.
• I pretty much avoid talking on the phone anyway, but with texting and FB it’s even easier. I prefer face to face, but find texting and FB helpful when used well.
• I find that my phone calls are more scheduled than anything else. In other days, I would just spontaneously call someone, or they’d spontaneously call me. Now, usually several texts go through asking if their busy before we call each other.
• Absolutely. Facebook is a wonderful communication tool. You can rally 10 people together to do something fun with hardly any effort. Remember trying to do that by phone?
• I very rarely get a phone call. Occasional text, emails are the way I communicate. And, I’ve been thinking, I don’t like it very much. NPR interview with Sherry Turkel, author of “Alone Together” about just this thing. A lonely existence.
• Text more than phone these days—inherited from my kids. Facebook has largely replaced e-mail for keeping in touch with friends and family. Still use e-mail and phone for business-type things, but being retired means a lot less of that too.
• Occasionally I need to give remedial phone etiquette lessons to my 13-year-old. She just doesn’t talk on the phone enough to know what to do.
• Text and Facebook are my biggest communication lines by far.
• Regrettably, honestly, yes.
• Yes. I generally avoid it.
• No, but I find myself wasting way way too much time here!!
• No, I’ve never been a phone-talker. I actually communicate more often now that technology has evolved.
• Yes, but even more, I almost never write people notes anymore. Used to put out a dozen a week.
• Some people I chat online with, some I call. It depends on the person.
• I text you since you are in a different time zone but I will say I know I light up when I see someone I know and love have called me. Text is nice because its unobtrusive. Calling lets you hear how someone really is vs what a Text or email tells you.
• What’s a “phone?”

Photo by Trace Meek.

And I didn’t vote.

We had already purchased airline tickets for my interview with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee when I realized that we would miss the April election.

I’ve always been an “election day” voter. There’s something festive about voting with everyone else, walking around wearing an “I voted” sticker, spotting the blue stickers on other people. It’s a citizenship party!

So I had no idea how to vote early, absentee, or any other option.

The municipality’s elections office assured me that our absentee ballots would be mailed out in plenty of time. That they would arrive before Liesl and I left town.

I watched our mailbox anxiously as our departure date grew closer.

And they didn’t come.

We got back to Anchorage on April 4. As we walked through the airport, a headline in the Daily News caught my eye: “Voters reject sexual orientation initiative.”

Our two votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but it would have felt better to know we’d done what we could.

Liesl and I have no plans to travel out-of-state on Election Day, but we’re both thinking about voting early. We’ll be in Anchorage next Monday and Wednesday, and there’s a good chance we’ll stop by one of the early voting locations then.

Why not? It’s not like we’re going to change our minds between now & Election Day.

What about you? Are you waiting until November 6? Or, like us, have you begun to imagine some of the things that could disenfranchise you?

I hear there’s a perfect storm headed for the East Coast. It’s anyone’s guess what chaos might break out in your neck of the woods. Here in Alaska, it’s likely to be a blizzard—or worse, an ice storm.

If you know how you want to vote, why not get out there and do it?

Elections matter, and so does your vote.

As soon as you’re ready, go, and make your voice heard.

I hear you still get a sticker, no matter when you vote. I’ll let you know.

Photo by Gretchen Fitzenrider.

Last Tuesday morning, one of the first things I read on Facebook was a friend’s link to a story from KTUU, our local NBC affiliate. Neighbors had discovered a woman’s body that morning in the parking lot of the Anchorage UU Fellowship.

The article said that police were investigating her death as a homicide.

My mind scrambled, thinking of people I knew from the fellowship who might match the article’s description of the unnamed woman. A quick check of Twitter and Facebook ruled out the two auburn-haired Unitarian Universalists who came to mind.

About thirty-six hours later, on Wednesday evening, police released the woman’s name: Marya Abramczyk, known to AUUF as Mya.

The next day, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Marya had taken her own life.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended her memorial service. I had never met Marya. My only contact with her was a series of emails this past May. She was serving as a pastoral care assistant for the congregation, and wanted information about online UU resources for one of the people she was visiting.

I attended Marya’s service to support her family and the congregation, both rocked by this tragedy.

And I was hoping to find some way to understand what had happened. I wanted to meet Marya for the first time, in the stories of those who knew and loved her.

The service included an extended time for storytelling. One by one—beginning with Marya’s mother—family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors stepped to the microphone and introduced me to Marya.

She was a gifted quilter, an artist who loved color, a person brave enough with a paintbrush to paint the walls of her home vibrant reds and yellows. She was a generous volunteer, a friend to newcomers, a maker of gifts for people she barely knew. She worked hard, and noticed the little things, like the grubby towels in the fellowship kitchen that she replaced with cheerful new ones. She chased down happiness with everything she had—even if it meant walking in the rain.

Everyone spoke of her generosity of spirit, her kindness, her beauty, her light. Their words formed a picture of such a loving, lovely person.

I found myself thinking about Jenny Lawson, the journalist and quirky blogger known as “The Bloggess.” Lawson, who suffers from depression, passed along a simple, two-word mantra that I’ve found tremendously helpful: depression lies.

I don’t know what lies depression told Marya. But somehow depression deceived this lovely, loving soul into not seeing, not feeling, not knowing the healing love flowing her way in return for all she gave, and all she was.

And that’s a tragedy. A too-common tragedy.

One of the last people to speak yesterday was a woman named Rhonda Horn, who lives a half-block from the fellowship.

Rhonda said that she saw the police tape as she drove by on her way to work on Tuesday morning. When she learned that a woman had been killed, and that it was being investigated as a murder, her first thought was, “It could have been me.”

Then as things unfolded through the week, and it became clear how Marya died, Rhonda said again to herself, “It could have been me. I live alone, and I’m a very private person. It could have been me.”

Rates of suicide and depression in Alaska are very high. Those of us gathered yesterday knew exactly what she meant. We know the crazy whispers in the darkness of the mind.

It could have been any one of us. It could have been our spouse, parent, sibling, friend, co-worker or neighbor. It could have been any one of us.

This week it was Marya, a beautiful soul I know only through the stories of those who loved her.

Photo by TK Kleiner. Used with permission.