Lyle
Alaska Is...
Alaska is... what is Alaska? I sit by the sea and I ponder this question in the day-like night. Is Alaska a mountain range? Or a series of towns and trees that fly by the window? A month in a tent with only a few showers? Peanut butter and jelly for lunch and cereal for breakfast? No. All of these things are in Alaska, yes, but Alaska IS not these. A person is not their appendix and liver. Alaska is more a sensation, a feeling, a comforting hand that nobody else can see. It’Äôs that sensation when you see something so magnificent that it’Äôs not worth taking a picture of to besmirch the perfection. Alaska is something best viewed without the filter of a lens, but rather with only the naked eye to preserve its perfection. Alaska is something to be experienced, something that can’Äôt be seen through the window of a tour bus or in someone else’Äôs photo album. Alaska is not a State, but instead a state of being. A state of peace and tranquility, of happiness, of love and brotherhood. Alaska is a place where you can feel safe and leap outside of your boundaries at the same time. It is a place where you go to listen, not only to slowly strummed guitar music, or to your boisterous and punch-drunk friends, but also to our Mother, Nature. Alaska is something that so few people have ever truly known that it is an honor and a privilege to be able to have found it. Alaska is everything that I have become, and everything I want to be. Alaska is many things by this description, but that is the nature of the beast, you can never pinpoint just what Alaska is, because it IS everything.