August 13, 2004  
Summer Sun

    Hola todos!  
    Well, I’m staying still for a bit. Met some beautiful folks here in Homer and am helping this wonderful organization called Vessels of Hope with some organizing and grant writing. They run a community resource center and reading room, and I’ve been helping with some projects they have for orphans in Nepal and Vietnam. Maybe next year I'll try to get out to Nepal to meet some of the kids we've been working to help.  A lot of their  parents have been killed by Maoist rebels in the recent uprisings.
    I hope you're all well and enjoying the summer sun! We're getting out and hiking and running a lot; Paul (VOH Director) took us out kayaking on the bay and hiking the ridge yesterday. Fun!  

Love  
asha

Grave-Digging In Alaska
July 20, 2004

    Hi everyone!
    Well, I never made it to the Arctic. We got 10 miles up the road past Fairbanks and the smoke got too thick- we were having trouble breathing and were told it was only going to get worse. So we turned around and headed south to Anchorage (not a very exciting city), then on to a great music festival in Girdwood, where we sold sage sticks we gathered in Oregon and coffee we picked up in Nicaragua, while handing out free homemade tortillas we made on our camp stove. And we worked a day at the sushi booth (yum!).
    Then we continued south to Homer, after getting about a hundred signs we should go there. Luke was immediately offered a great job and we found a beautiful camping spot on the beach, so it looks like we'll stay a while. He starts next week, so before then we figured we should try again to get up to the Arctic Circle. And again, we got as far as Fairbanks before the fires picked back up. We were going to push on anyway (I really wanted to see Arctic tundra, and they still have 24 hours of sunlight until early August), but after a handful of random warnings against it, the guy at the auto shop convinced us by describing in detail exactly what kind of car repairs we should expect to do afterwards. So we're heading south to Valdez instead, which everyone says is amazingly beautiful, to spend my birthday hiking in the wilderness.
    Aside from all the exploring, I’ve been reading and studying a lot (Kali's Odiyya was my most recent favorite). I’ve begun learning about the local edible plants, and I’m back to meditating daily, which has been a whole new world than it ever was before.  
    Alaska really is different than anyplace else I’ve been before. People here in general are a lot more connected to nature than in the Lower 48, and what would be considered extraordinary by most of us is just normal here. It seems like every schoolteacher and office worker has amazing stories about building her cabin with a pair of baseball gloves, getting dropped off by bush plane for a week of trekking in the Arctic, living with indigenous whale hunters, or being charged by moose or grizzlies. A lot of people live in cabins without running water or in areas only accessible by 4-wheeler. Safeway even has a big, free high-pressure water station in front for all the people who don't have running water to fill their tanks. And nobody thinks twice about us living on the beach or camping alongside the road for the summer. That's just normal. Lots of people do it.  
    So before I go, here's my favorite story from our time in Homer:
    We were standing in line at one of the six hundred coffee houses in Homer, picking the barista's brain about jobs, house-sitting, etc., when a woman walks up behind us, overhears us asking about jobs, and sees Luke's "Clawson Lawn Service" t-shirt, which he found in a free box in Santa Fe. She says, "Oh, good!  A lawn service! Do you have a rototiller?"
    "No," we answer. "We just found the shirt."
    "That's ok! Do you have a truck?"
    "No."
    "That's ok, are you free today? I pay well!"
    "Umm, yeah, we're free, what do you need?"
    "Well, there's a big pile of dirt and we need to spread it out. We can rent a rototiller at the hardware store. I have to do it before I leave tomorrow morning, and I’m so stressed. I can't do it by myself."
    We followed her outside, thinking she had some landscaping project half-finished, when she turned, looked us in the eyes, and said, "We buried Scotty in May."
    "Uhh..." What do you say to that?
    She continued, "The mound is so high and ugly, I can't stand to look at it anymore. It doesn't feel right. They said it would take two years to settle, but I can't wait that long." She pushed her cell phone number into our hands, gave directions to where we could rent a rototiller, and told us to meet her at the cemetery as soon as we could.
    We stood in the parking lot, watching her truck disappear, wondering if the last 15 minutes really happened. We decided to go with it.
    The rototiller wasn't available at the hardware store, so we had a fun time trying to explain what we were doing to the sales guy. ("Excuse me, what would you recommend we use to flatten a grave?"... "OK, and how does a tamper work?"... "Do you think it would crush the coffin?"... "And where exactly is the cemetery?")  
    So, strange as it all was, we met her at the cemetery and helped her with the grave. It turned out to be a very easy project, which we did alone after she left town with a shovel and rake. It was her pain that made it seem to her like a huge project that required heavy machinery. That afternoon we just sat at the cemetery with her, her 6-year old son, and their adorable puppy, listening to stories about her late husband and talking about Alaska. She was a wonderful woman, living an extraordinary life, and she invited us to spend the night at her hotel room, where we ate pizza and enjoyed the Jacuzzi. She said she had a feeling about us when she saw us in the coffee house.
    After she left, we tended to Scotty's resting site meticulously, making sure everything was perfect and planting purple and yellow flowers around the perimeter.
    We hope you like it, Scotty.