Alaska Part II is best experienced having first read Alaska Part I.

Maybe I should begin with a hello—Alaska Boy picking me up at the airport on December 28th just before two in the morning. A nervous, very good hello.

But another way to begin this part of the story is with a list of our goodbyes.

The first goodbye in Santa Barbara on December 10th—ten days after we first met—when I wasn’t certain we’d see each other again before his return to Alaska on the 26th.

The second goodbye—this one more certain—on December 19th, when he said I should come visit Alaska someday. That the weather was lovely in June.

The third goodbye—even more certain—on December 23rd, after my hilltop text about the kiss two days earlier, after our first kiss, a slew of in-between kisses, and then a goodbye kiss late at night on his parents’ doorstep. We’d decided to be friends moving forward; maybe one day our paths would cross again. We were grateful for the time we’d had together, and I drove home with closure. He’d actually become my dude from out of town. A happy ending.

Two days later, Christmas Day, I wasn't feeling so content. You’re okay, I told myself as something uneasy spread behind my breastbone. This is part of it, I told myself. A package deal—that joyful pod of dolphins in my chest and this tender, achy heart. Be grateful, I admonished. Be satisfied.

This time there wasn’t another cliff to jump from.

Yet still, I lay in bed wondering what it would have been like if he wasn’t satisfied either. For him to invite me to Alaska. Not as friends. Not in June. Now.

But even as I yearned for it, my desire for more felt weak. Childish. I told myself that a sophisticated, experienced person wouldn’t chafe against this ending. A more mature, modern woman would respect the bounds of temporary connection and move on with a fulfilled heart. They wouldn’t spoil it by wanting something they were never going to get.

Don’t ruin it, I told myself. It was so good.

Feeling blue, I granted myself one more night of yearning and drifted off to sleep imagining Alaska.

I was sleeping when he texted. Sooner rather than later, he said. Come for a week, starting in the next few days.

Suddenly, there was a cliff. It wasn’t even a second till I jumped.

Two days later I boarded a plane for ten days in Juneau.

I could tell you about Juneau by adding to the old list of everything Alaska Boy and I had done together:

-Me learning how to skate ski.
-An 3110-foot hike up Thunder Mountain.
-A trip to the rock climbing gym.
-Making cookies, twice.
-A Raclette dinner at his friend’s house.
-A chili dinner at his friend’s house.
-A lunchtime run along the pier.
-Skate skiing by moonlight.
-A New Year’s Eve party at his house wearing homemade tin foil hats.
-Making fresh pasta.
-Skate skiing across Mendenhall Lake.

But no matter how long I make the list, it still feels incomplete.

It doesn’t tell you anything of the verdant pillows of moss, the sweet earthy air at the base of Thunder Mountain. The millions of different ways snow and frost sound as they crunch underfoot, under microspikes. The buttery crumble of a Christmas cookie on the ridgeline, hood up and body angled away from the wind. Being above the clouds. The horizon a circling hoop of mountains. Seeing land slope its way down into the water of the inner channels. Islands like irregular stepping stones meandering across a quiet garden pond.

Or hot water running down my wrists washing dinner dishes at his friend’s house. Comfortable, homey chatter filling the kitchen in a way that made me want to close my eyes. Lean into the sound as if it were a tangible thing that could support my weight.

And the list misses all the smaller, softer moments:

-Watching light move across the mountains on Douglas Island from his living room.
-Studying his profile while we drove to the grocery store.
-Unloading his dishwasher.
-Moving across warm bed sheets toward him in the middle of the night.
-Quiet, brief moments in the kitchen weekday mornings before he went to work.
-Standing side by side at the bathroom sink. Flossing. Laughing. Brushing our teeth.

But don't let these grounded moments of comfort fool you.

If we return to the cliff jumping metaphor—jumping off a cliff to find you can fly—my ten days in Juneau didn’t feel like flying.

I was floating, midair.

But the air itself was radically different; the whole world felt new. Even as time flew, it stretched and slowed, welling up into rounded, pearlescent moments that were at once entirely present-tense and also utterly expansive. How did it feel to be in Juneau? Like nothing I’d ever felt before.

Is this the place where I tell you plainly that I had my very first kiss on December 22nd with Alaska Boy? That my time in Juneau saw many other firsts? That before now I’d never actually liked anybody, never felt any reason or willingness to open myself up in that way.

Writing this now—this is Skinny Dipping.

Back in June when I started this Substack, I didn’t know exactly how much openness and honesty would be possible but decided I could create a space for truth-telling if and when the moments arose.

This is one of those moments. This is what I set out to do. After all, what’s one more cliff to jump from? What’s a little more risk?

The day before I left for Juneau, my mother and I sat at the kitchen table before sunrise while everyone else in the house was still asleep. I told her any heartache waiting for me at the end of the ten days would be worth it. I didn’t need to know what was going to happen to know Alaska Boy was a risk worth taking.

But looking back, it was impossible to truly imagine the end when it hadn’t even begun. When I could scarcely believe I was going to Alaska.

Come that final Juneau day, we skied across frozen Mendenhall Lake to where you could see the glacier tumble like stiff peaks of aqua meringue into the lake’s edge. It was near midday and we’d spent the morning talking in bed. Talking in circles. Not sure what—if anything—came next. The Juneau of it all. The way I didn’t trust the headiness of all my good feelings.

Temporarily talked out and eager to get outdoors, we loaded skis into the car.

On the lake, none of the morning’s talk felt real. At the lake’s center, the world vaulted away from me and towards me. It contained me and left me at its very edge.

“You’re playing dirty,” I said to Alaska Boy.

He laughed.

But I wasn’t laughing. I was happy—but it was a vertiginous joy. Like there wasn’t enough air in the valley. Like my heart might explode.

Alaska Boy skied closer. “Swoon,” he said.

“Is that what I’m feeling?”

“Mm-hmm,” he said.

Yes, I realized. I was swooning.

I owe it to myself to not write in real time. To allow some distance between life as I'm living it and life as I’m sharing it here.

But you should know I’ve come back to Alaska. That I’m pressing send from Juneau.

Flying or floating. Or free falling. Swooning.

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Keep Reading! Alaska Part 2.5 - Whoa, vulnerability.