I envision writing a lot about how I feel right now. It's been exactly one year since I arrived in Antarctica. However, with 280 new people in town, my job is dish pan hands BUSY. So, I took a photo of myself in the same spot where I stood one year later.
Let this photo speak a grand amount. And I'll write more later.
Mary
Yeah, I haven't been much in the mood to write for my website.
It was one year ago today that I left Salt Lake. A lot has changed since then, I don't even recognize the person I left one year ago so it's strange to look back and see what's all happened to me and also to look to the future to see what might happen.
Lots of pondering and staring off into space. If you think Mars looks bright where you are looking at it, imagine how Mars looks down here. Without the sun, Mars is the second brightest object in the sky. When Mars sits off the horizon, to the right of Mt Discovery, it’s almost like looking at a red sun.
The sun rises for the first time since April 19 in three days. This means the sky does look like you’d imagine it if you lived on Mars. The sun, only 72 hours away, is casting mean colors of red, black and orange across the sky for a few hours in the afternoon. It’s almost like the sky is bruised and trying to heal from four months of darkness.
To celebrate the last days of total darkness, the New Zealand outpost, Scott Base, is having the last of the Polar Plunges tonight. There have been two other polar plunges throughout the winter. I have been smart enough never to do one of those again. Penny has done all of them. The last time she jumped into the icy ocean, she did a cannonball.
Maybe it’s because my brain is frozen and my memory shot, but I’ve decided to jump into the water one last time. Symbolically it just feels right to jump in the ocean once in the Summer and once in the Winter. Once when the sun was up 24 hours a day. And once when the sun was down 24 hours a night. So, I'm doing it one more time, sacrificing by body and jumping into the water with the icy sea creatures and razor taloned octopuses. Parts of my body are retreating in fear just thinking about what will be happening to them in six hours.
Last night I was talking to my friend Erika, and she said she can’t wait to hear me try to speak to the new people. The first plane load of people arrive on August 20. When I talk I leave holes in my conversation, make up words, change the subject in mid-sentence or forget what I was talking about when I take a breath.
In Antarctica, this is commonly referred to as “T3 Syndrome.” I guess there is some enzyme or hormone or Mitochostial Flagella that is not produced by the sun. I don't think it's related to the sun.
It’s entirely possible to live without the sun for four months and not feel any ill effects, I think the problem is related to repetition, reiteration, duplication, monotony and the utter recurrence of everything down here. I’ve been a dishwasher for a year. If it’s dirty I make it clean. Dirty, clean, go home. Dirty, clean, go home. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Freeze your ass off.
There's not much new to stimulate the ol'noggin' and as a result, my memory, ability to use words and concentration to continue on one tangent is at times, comically retarded. I miss kittens.
On August 9 I became a compassionate meat eater. After going 31 days of letting god’s little creatures live so that I could barely exist as a vegetarian, a weaker person, someone who bruised easily, I consumed meat. It was great.
August 9 was the night of our End Of Winter Dinner so Filet Mignon and Lobster Tail were served. When I took the first bite of the filet, it felt like every neutron and electron in my body went zooming towards my mouth in search of nutrients and protein being provided by meat. I was Popeye the Sailor Man. Instantly stronger, the bruises on my body changed back to the white pasty color of my flesh. My poop, however, never wants to leave my body.
Looking forward to getting out of here and going on vacation, I applied for a credit card that will give me 10,000 frequent flyer miles. The application process all took place over the phone and I wasn't ready to face the reality of the questions this lady asked about my current life.
"What is your home phone number?" She asked.
"I don't have a phone." I said.
"What is your address?" She asked.
"P.O. Box 521231," I started to say.
"No," she cut me off, "what is your street address?"
"I don't have one."
"Do you rent or own your home?"
"Neither?" I said from my company provided dorm room.
"Sir," she asked. "What exactly do you do?"
"I'm a dishwasher."
Well, even without this credit card, Penny and I have made our travel plans. We're staying in New Zealand for a month, then traveling to Australia for three weeks. Most likely we'll head straight to Tasmania and try to learn why the Tasmanian devil spins in circles. Rick and Jeanne are going to be our hosts for Thanksgiving in Indiana (They eat meat, right? If not I hope Indiana has some sort of All you can consume Turkey buffet. Tofurkey, how about To-Yuckey ) and then we land in Utah on December 3, your birthday.
143 more stupid things to do before I leave
(I'm lazy and not much in the mood to type any more. So, I think I will plagiarize my letter to you in my next posting--but with photos--let me know if this isn't okay.)
I'll see you in January when we're pulling a U-haul through Portland on our way to Seattle.
love
phil
Jon was standing over the fryer tossing large bags of pre-made honey dipped chicken into the boiling grease. The drumsticks, wings and thighs simmered, cooked and sizzled. Not really a monumental moment considering Jon has been cooking food in Antarctica for almost a year.
Not really a special meal, either. In fact, by the standards of what Jon is capable of cooking, pre-made honey dipped chicken had the galley smelling less like one of the gourmet meals that once earned him a Three and a Half star review in the Boston Globe and more like someone was cooking a TV dinner.
But, this day was Jon’s 40th birthday.
Jon started working in a kitchen when he was twelve years old. Then, working on the beach in Ogunquit, Maine Jon learned how to hold down his first job, by learning how to cook over a fryer. When Jon was 12, one of the most popular dishes in the seaside restaurant was pre-made honey dipped chicken.
The same dish Jon cooked when he was 12 was the what he was cooking on his fortieth birthday.
This is what Jon was thinking about on this birthday. From the age of 12, what had really changed?
Twenty-eight years ago, Jon got his first job for $2.15 an hour. He wanted to earn his own money. His parents made him put two thirds of each paycheck into the bank. He got to keep the rest of the money. After taxes, after working 40 hours a week, there wasn’t much left for Jon to keep. Maybe there should have been some child labor laws helping out Jon. But he didn’t complain. He had a job. And if he worked late, then his mom, Lois, let him stay out late. And, staying out at night, on the beaches of Ogunquit was worth more than the small change he was allowed to keep after cashing his check.
Now, 28 years later, Jon is still cooking honey dipped chicken. Ogunquit is replaced with Antarctica. He makes a lot more than $2.15 an hour and his mom doesn’t control his finances. More importantly, though, since the sun never rises, Jon is out at night from the very moment he wakes up until he goes to bed.
I first met Jon the day I arrived in Antarctica. At that time I was carrying around a notebook and writing down everybody’s name with a brief description of what they looked like so I could remember who they were the next time I saw them. When I met Jon, I wrote in my book “Cook. Big Guy.”
Jon’s biceps are thicker than my thighs. He is a big guy. My description was accurate.
A couple of days after meeting Jon, I came into work and he said, “I saw you playing cards last night. How’d you do?”
This was in August, last year. I was still tan, young, fresh and not worn out from a year of working 60 hours a week as a dishwasher. “I won over $400 off of the Winter Overs. They seem old, tired and worn out. It was easy money.”
“You’re planning on staying the winter,” Jon stated, “I better ask to have my contract extended so I can keep an eye on you.” He did.
On one of my first days off from work, I saw Jon walking into his dorm and asked him if he wanted to walk down to the sea ice. There was a hole cut in the ice and we could climb into an Observation Tube and go underneath the surface of the Ross Sea.
The Observation Tube was a 30 foot in length, sea foam green sewer pipe that you climbed straight down, below 10 ft of ice and then underneath 20 feet of 27 degree sea water. At the bottom of the tube there were eight cracked and leaking windows. It was dark in the water and even darker in the tube. All you could really see was every childhood fear swimming towards you in the icy Antarctic water.
Although it was only a year ago, this day seems a lifetime ago. Neither one of us knew what to expect on this day or in the future of Antarctica. There was a guy named Tom at the Observation Tube and he said he’d been coming to Antarctica for five years and had never seen a seal, but, he’d just seen one.
Then, like we were at a frozen Sea World, a seal appeared in this ice hole. What took Tom five years to see, Jon and I saw in less than five minutes. At the time, we didn’t know Tom was exaggerating and/or an idiot. Seals litter Antarctica.
We didn’t know this though, our hearts raced, this was the first seal I’d ever seen in Antarctica, I took more photos of this one seal than every other seal I’ve seen since, total, combined and added together.
This is still one of my Top Three favorite days in Antarctica, because I didn’t know I’d see more seals. I saw one seal. One more than Tom had seen in five years.
I saw this seal with Jon when he was 39.
Back at the fryer, standing over the honey dipped chicken, I told Jon he was needed in the front of the galley, everybody in town wanted to sing him “Happy Birthday” and thank him for all of the wonderful meals he’d cooked over the year.
Jon, however, didn’t want to go out front. He wasn’t ready to turn 40, because in his mind, he was twelve years old, on the beach in Ogunquit. Staying out at night, because he could. Because he wanted to. Because he had a job.
He looked at me like if he had only one birthday wish, it would be for him to not go and blow out some candles on a cake to make a wish in front of the town.
Then, instead of being in Ogunquit, he realized he was standing in front of his friend who he had known the longest in Antarctica. Together we had bonded over a single small seal. He had signed up to stay the winter to watch over me.
Now, I was telling him he was needed out front. Times change for the better. Today was his 40th birthday at the bottom of the world. A day, with friends he’d remember forever.
When Jon was 12 he cooked chicken in a fryer. When he was 39, he saw his first seal in Antarctica. On his 40th birthday, he cooked chicken, blew out some candles and then I hit him in the face with a pie.
The first day I met Jon he was defined by only three words: Cook, big, guy. Today I could easily add four more words to that description: Please, Don’t, Hurt, Me.