4,243 Miles
I’m back in NYC. Fairbanks is 4,243 miles away. 3 days by car. 12 hours by plane (including airport travel and plane changes). Fairbanks looks feels very small from here. It is small. 4 miles pretty much from end to end. I’m not a small town snob though. When I’m there I’m completely entertained and curious and open. Now I feel as though I was living in a snow globe (also not a dig or pun). I feel like this giant person in this big world and I can hold Fairbanks in my hand and it’s so remote and isolated that it’s its own little chunk of a thing. It didn’t feel that way while I was there. My Alaska experience for sure was small. Month one: hotel bound. Month two: getting settled and then leaving.
Alabama was small too but in a different way. Besides, Alabama is connected physically to bigger things and if you allow yourself to unfold into the continuum, you can and will get there from here.
Alaska is just its own thing. I don’t know what yet.
What I do know though is that I am happy to be back in the lower 48.
AK vs AK 