There’s always a Method to the Madness

There’s a beginning to every journey. 

Mine found me sitting hollow eyed and heart broken in one of the presentation rooms of Seward, AK’s little vocational school, AVTEC. I was sitting amongst strangers watching the town’s harbor master do a power point presentation on her winter’s experience in Antarctica. It was mid-April. Two weeks earlier I had had all the contents of my what seemed fairly “stable” life blown apart and scattered across the floor like one turns a jar of marbles upside down. The person overturning the jar watches with glee, as the unsuspecting fool that is unlucky enough to walk in, goes for a skid across the floor, legs and arms akimbo, out of control and at the mercy of their tormentor. That was how I, and my life, felt on a fateful day in early April. Arms and legs akimbo, careening at breakneck speed, for rock bottom.

My once “exceptional and amazing” relationship with my partner had suddenly gone sour to such an extent that there was zero possibility of sugaring it back to normalcy. Yes, the reality is that all good things eventually come to an end. But I was and still am a dreamer. I am such a dreamer and faithful believer that even when the relationship in question was so bad I dreaded being in my partner’s presence, I still didn’t want to give up. I’m not a quitter and when you love someone, you especially don’t want to give up on what you have invested in. No matter how much they are hurting you emotionally. But eventually, when you find yourself standing numb like a block of ice and that face of the man you had once dated suddenly is that of a stranger, and you don’t even know yourself any more; it’s time to move on. So, I found myself fleeing up the Alaskan Canadian Highway from a small town in Minnesota. My destination: Seward, AK, the last place I was genuinely happy and content. 

My goal was to get as much distance from the source of heart break as possible. Alaska’s pretty much as far as you can get without leaving the country. All I wanted was to drop off the map and cease to exist. 

As fate will have it, the grape vine of gossip is a long one, and two weeks later, the gossip found me. The “love” and void I had left behind in Minnesota had been easily and quickly taken over by a skinny 21 year old college girl. Talk about bursting one’s bubble. Not that I’ve ever had much of an ego to boast over, that certainly did take the air out of my sails. My faith in humanity, love, and the opposite sex had suddenly become null. The sheep herder had definitely pulled the wool straight down to my toes. The echoing parting words my partner had said in regards to the remorse and regret for what we had had was suddenly cheapened. So what do you do? Of course I cried. I ranted, I cursed. I wallowed in my own self-pity for a while. 

Because, well, I am human.

For what? My relationship was over. It had been over for months; just neither of us had been able to acknowledge it. A quote from “A War on Art,” defines what the last few months of our relationship had turned into. “We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We’re bored, we’re restless. We can’t get no satisfaction. There’s guilt but we can’t put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We’re disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves. Unalleviated, Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vices kick in. Dope, adultery, web surfing.” The stark reality was that I had no desire to be submerged in that environment any more than I already had been. I was not going back and nor was he pining over me since he was being entertained by a new interest when the old hadn't even died yet. So I finally dragged myself back up to an upright position, dusted myself off, and hobbled on, nursing my wounds as I went.

And that’s how I found myself to be sitting in a room full of strangers listening to a woman give a glowing presentation on her time in the Antarctic. The South Pole. She had worked on one of the  research ships down there working for the National Science Foundation. Her photos were vivid images of massive red ships and forbidding ice and of course, penguins. Penguins. Her slide show flashed photos of people working hard, wearing big, puffy red parkas where their faces barely emerged. What little you could see was that of a gigantic smile. They were all there for one thing: Science. And in that moment, a light bulb went off. Ta-da! It was the first bright moment in weeks.

When I left Minnesota in April and returned to the last frontier, all I knew was the here and now. I could not think past one day. But this woman’s presentation was bringing it all back to me. It was time to commit and pursue something that was healthy, new, and would allow me to heal as well as grow and become a better person.  Sitting in that presentation room, I suddenly had the smell of sweet, wild adventure. It was a smell I knew all too well.

Since celebrating my 21^st birthday in the wilds of Baja California, I had pretty much been on a journey of life that had taken me all across the west coast, back to the east coast and then back again. Every few months I was packing my bags and heading off somewhere. I had friends scattered across the globe because of my wandering ways. My mind was virtually bursting with mental memories of experiences and scenery that I had witnessed over the years. My address was that of a present day Jack Kerouac: The Road. 

In the last year, I had somehow lost track of this way of life. Or what my life had been I should say. I had lost something that was very vital to my well being. I had lost something that made me, me. Maybe it was because I had made the decision to step out on a limb and move somewhere to be in a committed relationship with someone who I thought was on the same page. I had moved, but I hadn’t made the move to abandon my wandering and adventurous ways. I simply thought there would be two instead of one for once. But somehow the adventures had ceased, replaced by a web of lies, drunkenness and drug abuse.


Things weren’t making sense, nor were our lives running parallel any more. My world should have been wide open in front of me, but it had suddenly become very narrow and hurtful. When my relationship came to an end, I realized I needed to re-find the person I used to be. I would never be the person I was before this relationship, but I could at least salvage what good qualities I used to have.

My midnight escape from Minnesota to Alaska was the initiation of regaining independence and my spirit. I was finally free. I’ve always found solace in Mother Nature. I get Mother Nature and Mother Nature gets me. There’s beauty, honesty, respect and peace in the elements. So why not find it in Antarctica? Why not subject myself to one of the most extreme environments out there? 

I needed something that would and could kick my ass. 

I wanted to remember what it was like to feel my nose hairs freeze because it’s so cold. 

I simply needed to remember what it was like to feel alive again.

I needed to be exposed to a situation where my wits and my outdoor skills would be tested. Living in the outdoors was what I did. It was my professional job and I was good at it. I would never be paid $60,000 dollars for it, but it would make me smile every day. And that smile was worth more than thousands of dollars. I needed to get back at it. I had given stability and the settled life a go and I had failed miserably. It was time to go back to my former nomadic ways. It was a way of life that I understood and it understood me. 

I needed to disappear. For the last few weeks I had wanted nothing more than to slip off the radar. When I was driving along the ALCAN and I hadn’t seen a car for days, I just wanted to step off the side of the road, walk into the mountains and not come back. 

Who would notice? My family and my friends, that’s who. 

But in Antarctica I could do a legitimate disappearing act. I’d still be there, but I’d be gone too. It’s so far away and so hard to get to, that no one can visit you there. You can only call out with a phone card. Once you’re there, you’re there. You’re committed to a mission. 

I could disappear into a community where no one knew me. I could become Fran again. I could smile and laugh again. I could get the opportunity to experience wonders of this world that not many have seen. I could work hard for a good mission: Science. I could expose myself to elements that would test every limit I had, and on top of it all, I could grow as a person. I would be starting over. And I would be doing it for me, not someone else.

Heartbreak was sending me to Antarctica. Plain and simple. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen is how my journey to the Ice began. The rhyme and reason behind it all. There’s always a method to the madness. 

I have never blogged before. I felt this journey potentially worthy of a scribe and here is my first attempt. This is not an attempt at another Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert style. Nor is it an attempt for pity on my behalf or belittlement of those left behind in Ely, MN. It is simply my story.There’s a beginning to every journey as is there a side to every story. 

You can follow faithfully, or you can sign off after trudging thru this long and meandering entry and never check back in. I’ll leave that up to you.