On Pushing Personal Frontiers, in The Last Frontier

In the past weeks, I have learned how to masterfully fold a pricey ivory white towel in under four seconds, and how to make toilet paper rolls look elegant by creasing neat little triangles on them. I have scrubbed more toilets in 21 days than I ever imagined I would in my 36 years, and (unsuccessfully) labored at getting streak-free, unfrozen shines on outdoor windows in temperatures that turn your nose hairs into micro-icicles. I have picked bloody tampons and floss from trash bins, scrubbed ashtrays and fireplace panes, scrubbed a hot pink children's toy Cadillac. My skin has made contact with hundreds of wet towels in various stages of "used." My arms have completed thousands of pulling motions of a vacuum and side sweeps of a mop. I've yelped, often loudly, from being shocked by static electricity between four and twelve times a day when flipping guest rooms (I use professional words like "flipping" now), and removed hair from many different people's many different body regions from duvet covers, from bath mats, from my uniform. Yes, I wear a uniform. 

Sometimes, I catch a thought floating by: that I've sold nearly all the contents of a business I spent ten years (mellowly) building and loving, to kick off this new stage in life by traveling to Alaska to play housekeeper in an upscale ski lodge. Sometimes- often when saying "housekeeping" in a steadfast albeit cheery tone before entering a guest's room- I can't help but smile at the strange magic of it all. Of what I'm doing, of where I am, of how I got here, of how refreshing all this novelty feels, like: the first sentence of a good book; or, the last.

There's something so unequivocally grounding about putting yourself in different shoes for a while, even if -or especially if!- those shoes are going up and down an average of 29 floors a day with loaded laundry baskets and cleaning piss spots off public toilet seats. But: if all this means waking up in a yurt, to fresh snowfall every week, surrounded by one of the most impressive mountain ranges in Alaska, and having at minimum 90 minutes of winter play nearly every day, I consider myself pretty damn lucky to be living it.

I've already seen a giant moose and had my face embrace a sky full of dime-sized
snowflakes; hitchhiked with a mandarin ball of fire melting into cotton peaks; saluted a
giant moon suspended in the shy Alaskan blues of morning. I've climbed a frozen waterfall and become one who snowshoes on the regular and bootpacks up hills for just a couple of good turns. I have learned how to use an avalanche beacon and load into a helicopter. I'm experiencing winter -and myself, I suppose- in a way quite unlike I have before. If I were to draw this moment, my paper would show a sailboat heeling. The wind has picked up and I'm gliding with intention. Can you imagine the feeling? Then you must know it's almost always worth it. No matter what uniform you put on to make it so.