George Franklin, Sr., hiked down the Kenai Peninsula from Anchorage, Alaska in 1945 after he returned home from World War II.  He laced up his boots one morning in his ratty motel in Anchorage, piled his large backpack on his shoulders, and began walking south.  He didn’t stop until he reached the very end of the Homer Spit, 221 miles south of where he had been.  But it still wasn’t far enough.  George bought an island off the coast of Homer from the government for half of his meager life savings and kayaked across Kachemak Bay until he landed on the coast of his own personal sanctuary.  As George stepped out onto the pebble beach his first day, he paused and listened to the constant calming sounds of nature and the water being sucked out over the rocks.  He realized that no matter how long he lived there, no matter how well he could describe this very moment to people back home, they would never be able to appreciate the absolute serenity and subtle beauty of his own personal cove.

Bluefish Cove still exists today.  But when you navigate your boat through the mouth of it and behold the clear blue water and the majestic natural arch that stands guard on top of the cliff, you can’t help but wonder if it really does exist.  Everything in Bluefish Cove is magical, green, fresh, and when you wake up in the morning, you can never be sure if you ever really stopped dreaming.  

My parents and I have been going to Alaska since 2002.  We’ve been all over the state: hiking in chilly Fairbanks, trekking up mountains in Denali National Park, catching halibut off the side of a boat in the Cook Inlet.  It’s been their dream since our first trip all those years ago to have a house on the ocean in Alaska on a cliffside, eagles soaring overhead and whales popping up in the water off our beach.  And nearly two years ago now, their dream became our reality.  Bluefish Cove, George's cove, became our home. 

Our friends can never fully wrap their heads around why we ever chose Alaska.  When my mom tells someone about our Alaskan home, the reaction is usually pretty predictable. 

“Oh, wow, you guys are going to Alaska?  So adventurous!  You know, Bill and I went on a cruise there for our honeymoon,” they’ll say.  My mom will laugh politely. 
“Oh, no no, we have a house there!  No cruises for us.”  Eyes will bulge unbelievingly.
“Well, my gosh: a house?  Do you have proper plumbing out there?  Wifi?  It just sounds so...rustic,” they’ll say, pity for us thick in their voice.

People don’t understand the draw of Alaska until they’ve been there for themselves.  Until they have pried fresh mussels off of the beach outside their front door, until they have seen a bald eagle swoop over their head and perch feet above them, until they have tasted the sweet air that hangs over the green earth, they just won’t get it.  People don’t understand or appreciate what they’ve never experienced.  We can tell them we have this beautiful house in the middle of nowhere but all they are ever going to think is that for two weeks a year, we leave our phones at home, collect our most precious personal items and lock ourselves away from civilization and emerge unshaven and ragged.  But it’s so much more than that.

The kids that live on the island took me under their wing when I arrived, excited at the prospect of another teenager to run around with.  They decided that a good introductory outing for me to embark on was a trip to Humpy Creek, a freshwater glacial stream where hundreds upon thousands of salmon go to lay their eggs at the end of their life cycles.  George Jr., the grandson of the original George, handed me a wetsuit as I stood dumbfounded in the middle of his kitchen.  Eric, a blonde, overconfident college kid, and Sarah, the only other girl on the island, sat at the kitchen table and laughed as I stared blankly at the wetsuit.  The tight arms and petite waist line looked entirely too small for me and I dreaded having to wiggle my body into the slightly damp, salty smelling neoprene second-skin.  George looked at me with a classic Franklin smirk, his ash blonde hair sticking right up off his head. 

“Go on, Connecticut,” Eric said as he gasped for air.  “Give it a try!”  He pointed me towards a bedroom so I could change and I stepped in, all the while wondering how I was ever going to manage to fit in this portable torture chamber.  I pulled it on the best I could and when I waddled out of the room fifteen minutes later, my breathing was labored and the old sea water in the suit made it stick to me like a dampened suction cup.  Eric took one look at me and doubled over laughing again.   “Good going...it’s on inside out, Connecticut,” he said with glee.  I turned bright red and rushed back inside the room, peeling the neoprene off of my skin as I went. 

When I finally had it on the right way, two more boys had showed up dressed in their wetsuits: Brody, George's younger brother, and Rand, Brody's best friend.  When everyone was ready to go, an excited shiver ran through the kids and they all began to giggle.  They all burst out of the house at once, sprinting down the boardwalk.  It was raining slightly outside and the cool rain was stinging my face.  Sarah was yelling and flailing her arms, running around the group in circles.  Brody jumped on Rand's back and they charged down the wooden boardwalk, Rand's feet slapping the slick wood.  Eric was racing with George, both of them sprinting full speed ahead, determination carved into their faces.  It was like running with a pack of wolves on the hunt.  Their excitement was tangible and infectious.  I could feel their energy bombarding me and I began to laugh.  It started as a slight chuckle, laughing at how crazy they all seemed to me.  But suddenly, I was speeding beside Sarah, powerful laughs and exclamations coming out in gasps.  I could feel a stitch forming in my side but I couldn’t stop.  I wanted to run with them forever.

When I got home, I told my friends about that day.  They were more interested in how the kids got me to run and less interested in the infinite beauty of that moment, feeling so alive and free and like a version of myself that I never even realized that I could miss.  They wrote off the entire trip as something to laugh about, to poke fun at.  They’ll never be able to understand how precious it all is unless they go with me one day and let themselves be won over by the immense unknown that thrives there like I was. 

Some people believe that you can understand something just by reading or learning about it.  You can know the steps to intricate African tribal dances and rituals from 3000 BC without ever having seen one performed but you’re never going to appreciate them without experiencing the rumbling beat of the drums or seeing the sweat fly off the faces of the dancers.  People can’t appreciate or truly understand something that they have never experienced.  This goes for the tribal dances and also for Alaska.

It’s true that there is a difference between here and Alaska.  There’s the Simone that lives in Connecticut, stuck half inside her shell at any given time, calculating risks and analyzing little words.  This Connecticut-Simone is cautious, scared to get a scratch, scared to let her blood boil to the surface.  Then there’s the Simone that lives on her island in Alaska, hair wild and free, face turned up to the sun, cuts and bruises from time well spent covering her legs and arms.  She runs, jumps, screams, curses, cries, laughs; she savors every sip of air that she can wrangle through her chapped lips, sopping up every drop of excitement from this life.   I can’t help but wonder if this Alaska-Simone knows more than this Connecticut-Simone.  It feels as if that wild girl, loping over hills, chasing salmon upstream, diving off the sides of boats into frigid water to get closer to a seal, is more myself than I could ever be here.  But I can’t imagine her in this life here, standing in this stuffy, overly decorated room, crossing the rug in her muddy boots to shake the hands of my dad and stepmom.  I can’t imagine her sitting around a table in the café, sipping tea and complaining about how much work she has.  She’s so different and people here can’t appreciate her for that.  They’ll never appreciate what Alaska did for her.  They wouldn’t understand, even if she was staring them straight in the face.