 I knew it was going to be rough trail when I left Alaska, even well before I made tracks for the Southland. But I left all the same--walked away from 35 years of gatherin's in complete disarray--my old school bus where I was always suppose to have a place in town to come to, my guide camp deep in the Alaska bush, my beloved mountains, my life. I had to, the demons were finally eating me up--
I'd left Ak hanging by a thread. The most brutal relationship I'd ever jumped into fresh behind me, along with yet another wife before getting involved with this latest karmic train wreck. Finances low, I wasn't even holding my own--day to day the payments from eBay drying up, the ridiculous little pittance from Goggle not on its own able to keep fueling the flight, with some days not even enough for a beer.
Within a month I knew I was headed for a crash, the money from "the" ex-girlfriend for a solar system I'd built her never materializing, she claiming the system was stolen from her land before she got back from the Slope. But by then I'd already left, this whole crazy karmic payback-for-past-sins thing really starting to freak me. The thousands from the wanton plunder of keepsakes from my years in the mountains now gone, with the goods spread across the globe in various collections, remnants from a spirit trapped forever in the borderlands, now trying the final step of leaving it all behind for one final quest--
I took off with just my flint and steel, knives and guns, trail possibles, T42 notebook, satellite hook-up, and not much else, heading first to visit the family, needing some love, figuring I'd hang for a spell, heal up and then on back to killin' myself slowly trying to find the freedom that had made it all work years before. The bead work, saddles and hand crafted mountain gear I'd sold from that dream's future past, unlike the rest of my life I'd left behind, at least safe from what I figure must be a field day back in Alaska for the hard scrabble Gold Streamers I'd been living amongst since quitting the Mountains and becoming "civilized".
Now I was mad at myself. I'd partied a large portion of what I'd made selling my life spinning around Fairbanks and Goldstream, squandering the thousands, wrecking two trucks where I should have been dead, going crazy, my friend putting me out in the cold rain and snow, kicked from his land deep in winter, as I ruined what little I had left of myself in a near total collapse.
 I'm not kidding you, I'd stayed drunk and stoned for months, from morning till night doing tokes--writing, hitting the bars after midnight, cattin' around making the motions that I wouldn't mind getting laid, but by closing so sick of the game I gladly left alone, putting myself back to writing in the dark dawning light after sliding to home on black ice--still just trying to get shed of the emptiness.
I'd known better than to risk it again, especially with my karma finally coming back around to haunt me, but who wouldn't, she was young, trim and pretty. And danger signs right from the start, but like the sap that I am, still was spending most of my remaining time and money setting up the solar system for that Scorpion Girl I still loved, now on the North Slope being macho working seismic surrounded by men, how she liked it I reckon.
And then I just left, the Alaska Rail Road's weekly milk run to Anchorage a slow letting go of a place I was already missing. Twenty-five years earlier having used the train fairly often (if I was in the chips) (but only if I had a woman at the time)--the old haunts and bright February winter now whizzing by my window as I sat in comfort watching in warm encapsulated detachment decades pass before me. Very much unlike most of the times before down this snowy Alaska trail, more often than not hitchin' on The Parks Highway running parallel to the tracks. Girlfriend or not, summer or winter we'd make the pilgrimages in our seasonal migrations, or if we were lucky, maybe her or me had some quirky old truck with a bum heater that'd break down at least once every trip, and occasionally, as I said, we'd take the train so we could really go forth in style.
Back in those times I was always heading for some far-flung adventure. We'd get off in Wasilla and hitch back up the road to KABN Radio in Big Lake, the hospitality of my communal family always a treat, a time now forgotten except by us that were there, the station gone as is so much of the Alaska I'd loved in the beginning. Parties and madcap, hanging with the crew and the bands coming through, we [the station] sponsored so many it was like living in whacky-ville 24/7. After a few days I'd grow anxious for the woods so my woman and I (and sometimes even just myself) would ride off into the sunset, heading out to some remote hunting camp down on The Peninsula, maybe up in The Alaska Range or Wrangells... Or be heading back to the home camp in the far north, on the edge of the Interior Barrens to trap the winter with dogs and sleds, bannock and dry fish, living off our wits and pure grit for six or seven months at a stretch all alone hundreds of miles from town.
Speeding on down the line I kept straining, trying to see the far Mountains out beyond the narrow half-mile wide strip of blatant yuppie playground they call The Parks corridor, my heart aching for the wilderness where I had spent so many of my years in the struggle--now all flitting by at well over fifty, in what seemed like a zoetrope run a muck. The pictures flipping so fast and furious with the decisions I'd made in my life I wasn't sure I'd make it back--at least not anytime soon, if ever, my future now out of my hands like a Heyokah doing his Ghost Dance. From what I could see at this point I figured, taking one more toke before going back into the coach from out on the end deck, I was planning on running long and hard, right on the edge, till I either found my medicine again, or ended up dead--clear to Patagonia, or beyond if need be, hoping to get back my soul. That was the plan--see the family, enjoy what was left, and then get out of the States before the shit hit the fan.
After a few days in Anchorage I bugged out disappointed, more disillusioned than ever, and finally took off for Plasticville. It'd been well over a decade since I'd been there, as I landed it looked even stranger than before. But man talk about women--they were everywhere. Even most of my remaining family was female. And then it happened.
I fell in love again. SMACK! With someone even younger. Damn near knocked me on my ass. I knew it the minute I saw her, I'm not shittin' you one bit, and I know it is cliché, but this time it was truly love at first sight. Now I was in a fix! Hell, I was in no mood to risk feelings again, having spent too many years with wives, girlfriends, live-ins and strays always hoping to make it all stick, but finding a million reasons to leave--to risk such emotions again. Fuck No! Yet this one felt ok--
So I stayed on, sensing I couldn't leave anytime soon, besides running on empty, my life still on hold, and stuck, way in love. But you have to understand--this babe is not your average girl, like I said, she's totally non-threatening. Absolutely the most beautiful thing in my life at this time, always bright as sunlight. At just a tad over 2 feet with nappy blond curls and lightness she's just the right size too, for hugging and tickling, and just holding her close and rocking. I first saw her when she was really tiny--3 months and still helpless. Just a cute little punkin head she couldn't even hold up.
Uncles are suppose to babysit, right?
Even officially if they be Grand Uncles. So I did. Feeding her, making her laugh, encouraging her to be wacky, her view already a little north of center and awesome-- funny fart noises in the morning, cute goofy hats for afternoon stroller rides , her laughing face set off with cheap kid sun glasses when we bust a move to sweet bluegrass at night. Hey guys, if you're chicken shit to change a diaper, tackle gutting a 1500 pound moose, fuck man, baby poop don't hold a candle. Didn't even faze me, even made me smile with her unpretentiousness, the precious spontaneity of her being, with each day passing feeling more like I was cleaning away the shit in my own life than fixing her chubby fat bottom making her right with the world once again--
I'm not going to say I know, even now, why I left so many long years back. But I did! Driven by a vision and my strong primordial instincts, seeing ever so clearly, even then, what is now happening to the world that we live. I was just 21, and as young men do, followed my own direction, more interested in what I saw as a vision than little lives that need nurture and a wife wanting love. Sure it's no excuse, but I'm telling you I was led on by something so strong it still blows my mind. All I wanted was to take my woman and kids far to the north, Peace River at the time, deep into the wild--live primal and free like we should be, safe from what I saw coming. Yet in this surreal TV fed world, so deceived by those bent by power and greed I didn't stand a fucking chance--with parents and friends injecting their brainwashed two-cents into my young teenage wife she didn't either--
 Yet it was too late to turn from the vision for me--it was her choice if she didn't want to jump off the edge, afraid of the unknown. By then I didn't have a choice, refusing to barely come indoors, more comfortable in my lean-to in the backyard, with the goats and chickens and sweat lodge right in the big ol' city. But she couldn't see the dream. At that I became Uitco (crazy, wild). Like a whirlwind on a prairie fire I gathered what I needed to go up, made medicine and was gone--my young son and sweet unborn daughter crying in the smoke of my parting as I made tracks for paradise and stayed there--my heart burning in hell every night...
Her laughter comes to me like water from the rim rock--awakening from her nap all squeals of joy with just living. Such a good little baby in her crib, playing with the sounds of our language, so tickled with each day's new awareness she cracks herself up, and I sit and listen, sometimes for an hour or more feeling the love that could have been--
Yet what could have been, is not, and never will be, I know that--except, even if for only a moment, when I'm with her.
Always on the long trail, even when standing still, Tobias Stewart
by W.J. Lynus O'Brien ~ November 23--2008
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In The Time of Losing It All 
