The 5th Arrival

I've never experienced the strange feeling of a time warp the way that I do when I come back to the Ice. This place is bizarre in that every time I arrive here, it's like I never left, and every time I leave, it's like I was never here. Some strange dream I can't quite explain in which 5 months of my life is defined as one long day because of the 24 hours of daylight, yet I sleep, and thus experience those dreams within a dream. I found myself in Alaska this summer staring at a world map on a wall in the hostel I was at, trying to decide where to place my pin to indicate where I was from, and finally settled on marking McMurdo as home. That was both unsettling and centering at the same time. To associate this place as home more than other places, seems strange, but then at the same time, I realized that I've come to a place in my life where home is truly about being comfortable in your own skin wherever you are.

The picture is a satellite image from above of Ross Island and the Ross Sea, as well as the continent. Ross Island is that little black outlined shape in the middle of the image, McMurdo Station is on the edge of the thin point pointing towards the bottom of the photo. The dark space to the upper right is the ocean, and the white edge that surrounds it is the beginning of the ice shelf. The line from top to bottom of the photo that goes through the middle is the edge of the Antarctic continent.

"peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart." -unknown