St. Paul Island, Alaska in Early Spring
Yesterday unfolded slowly, one small moment at a time, until it felt like something more. On St. Paul Island, Alaska, early spring still holds tightly to winter, and finding an ice-free stretch of beach has been harder than expected.
I slept in a bit, which, let’s be honest, is not exactly breaking news. The house was quiet when I woke up, that soft kind of quiet that feels earned, not empty. Carlos was already moving around in the kitchen, working on the rolls he’s bringing to Easter dinner today. We celebrate a week later here, following the Russian Orthodox Easter calendar, so everything feels slightly out of sync with the rest of the world, in a way I’ve come to really love.
He was practicing a recipe from one of his coworkers, Lisa, focused in that way he gets when he wants to get something just right. The smell of dough and yeast slowly filled the house, warm and steady, while I moved into my own rhythm for the day.
I spent time folding notecards I received last week from the printer, lining up edges, smoothing creases, sorting them into sets. I’ve been slowly building out a small collection of illustrations to use on stationery, pairing the cards with wax seals I’ve been making to match. It’s quiet work, but satisfying, the kind where you can see progress pile up in front of you. The notecards will be on Moss & Moonflower soon.
In between that, I kept dipping back into the website. That ongoing project that seems simple until you’re in it. Adjusting layouts, moving things around, trying to make it feel cohesive instead of pieced together. It’s getting there, slowly, but in a way that feels right.
By the afternoon, we needed to get out.
We headed to Antone Lake, not for the view this time, but for something far less romantic, rusty nails. On a treeless island, fire pits tell a different story. What gets burned mostly are pallets, the byproduct of everything that has to be shipped in. And pallets mean nails. Lots of them.
I’ve been experimenting with making my own paint. One of the disadvantages of an over water move is that I could not bring any liquids, which includes paint. Instead, I’ve been starting to experiment with making paints from materials I can find here on the island, seeing what colors I can create from what’s around me.
Rust is one of those materials.
So we walked the fire pits with a magnetic pole, dragging it slowly across the ground, listening for that soft, satisfying clink as nails snapped into place. We filled a bucket, a heavy one. It takes a surprising amount of rust to make iron oxide powder, which is what I’ll use to create a pigment, so gathering enough material has been part of the process from the start.
After the nail collection, we weren’t ready to head home yet.
Since I got back at the beginning of March, the island has been wrapped in ice. It’s been beautiful, huge chunks of it pushed up along the shoreline, sculptural and strange, something we don’t get to see often. But it’s also made something simple feel oddly difficult: finding a stretch of beach that’s actually accessible and free of ice.
We’ve tried a few times now, and each time we’ve been turned back.
Today was no different, at first.
We tried for Pier Point, one of those places that’s been out of reach since I got back. We made it about halfway before the road disappeared, not under snow this time, but under water. We turned around, a little disappointed, a little muddy, and not entirely surprised.
One more try.
We headed to Lukanin.
And this time, we made it.
Not all the way into some wide, open stretch, but far enough. Far enough to step onto sand. Far enough to reach the water.
I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I was standing there, boots planted at the edge, watching the water move. Not frozen. Not locked. Moving.
Alive.
Even without feeling it directly, it mattered. It felt like something in me exhaled.
We found what looked like weathered and scattered walrus skulls, one of them oddly reminiscent of Bowser, which made me laugh out loud. Something about the shape of it, the broad, almost exaggerated features, it really did look like him.
Somewhere in all of that, I got hit with a wave of missing my mom.
It wasn’t anything big. Just a word. A phrase that popped into my head, something she would have said without thinking. And just like that, she was there and gone at the same time. It caught me off guard and stayed with me longer than I expected.
By the time we got home, the day had settled again.
Carlos put a corned beef into the Instant Pot, and we made sandwiches with the rolls he’d baked earlier. They turned out right, which felt like a small, quiet win.
Later, we spent some time thinking about Tabitha. She’s out there, doing what she’s been called to do, and we don’t get to know much. We looked up her ship, hoping for something current, but found very little.
So we sat with that, too, the distance, the unknown, and the steady love we carry for her, constant, even from this far away.
It was a full day, steady and layered in all the ways that matter. Somewhere between ice and sand, we found the water again, and held onto the quiet things that carry us through the rest.
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