Alaskan message

I woke up with a strange dream. The dream was that, I was allowed to re-do my MSc in India. I should do the exact same drill and I could live with my parents. I would end up wasting six years of my life. Very strange and worse, it felt realistic. I woke up dissecting my dream, because I had felt very happy with the offer (in my dream). In hindsight my happiness must have stemmed from the fact that I could live with my parents. I pushed open the curtains and stood to see the broad day light at 3:00 AM, clouds moving up the mountains. It was beautiful. Alaska was offering sights I had seen never before. Crisp clear, blue glaciers formed between scaling snow clad mountains, miniature bonsai tundra flora all over, hump back whales , sea lions, grizzly bears, rain forests, the only sound to hear is the distant snorting of whales, above all millions of acres of wilderness with absolutely no human inhabitation. Several people come here to experience the “Mccandles phenomena”, to live one with nature in an absolute sense. We all end up carrying a part of Alaska in us. I was reminded of what almost every forest ranger had told us till then. If you listen closely, the land speaks to you. This was not my first strange dream in Alaska. I had had several, all holding opportunities to time travel to the past.

I woke up at 7 in the morning to the husband singing “Like a true nature child we were born, born to be wild”. I was annoyed. I am not a morning person. I need my caffeine to kick start my endorphins. And at 7 he has the energy to sing born to be wild. He saw me and said, “Innuki ena ma Whale watching a? Unfortunately we are not in Pazhani”. I tried hard not to smile, to not encourage these jokes. But these days even the slightest movement is being recognized. Two years of being married.

During our Alaskan vacation, we hiked up several thousands of feet that gave us breathtaking views. During one of them, after our picnic lunch, jan our guide read out something Kim McCox, a ranger at Denali had once written. Alaska, a state which is as big as India, 2/5th the size of the United States has millions of acres of conserved land, letting the land be wild. That’s the most beautiful part of it. The lines were something like this.
“To leave a place as it was found, and not after we are finished with it, a place where worries come from bears and not from bear markets, and for once try not to shape the land but to let the land shape you….”

Somewhere along the wilderness, I realized my Alaskan message. I constantly glorify the past, stress or fantasize the future therefore not truly living the moment. I think that’s what I should aim to do. For there is too much happiness in the present, and at every moment I can only realize how gifted I am for all the people I have and the opportunities I cross.