Clinically Competent

Yesterday I received an email that stated this:

We are pleased to inform you that you have met the Standards for the Certificate of Clinical Competence in CCC-SLP and your application for certification has been approved by the Council for Clinical Certification in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CFCC). 

This felt like the so-very-near-completion (it will feel entirely complete when I receive my certification award packet in the mail) of a multi-year, multi-state, and even multi-country journey. 

If memory serves correctly (which, admittedly, it often doesn't), the journey began six years ago when I got the crazy idea to switch careers. At that time, I lived in Wyoming. I took prerequisite and graduate courses, and also did a 5-week Kentucky-based "boot camp" in the field, while living in Morocco. I interned in Maryland and Nebraska while living in Maryland and Alaska. I birthed, nursed, and stayed home with a child. I worked part-time. I worked full-time. 

And now, finally, I've been officially notified that I'm a "real" speech-language pathologist. I don't even remotely feel like I am. Nevertheless, if I ever will feel like I am, this is a big step in that direction.

Taking the ferry (take 2)

About three weeks ago, we tried to combine business and pleasure by taking a trip to the mainland to take Rainbow to an allergy specialist in Anchorage and to visit T's parents in Anchor Point. This meant taking the ferry again, something I was not looking forward to. My already fairly strong sense of foreboding increased when, the day before we were scheduled to leave, I was struck by an illness so awful that I thought I must have The Flu. (I didn't. At times I thought I had something worse.)

However, thanks to frequent and generous doses of acetaminophen, calm seas, and a selfless husband (he shared a tiny bunk with Rainbow who was so excited to be sleeping "next to Dada! Next to Dada!" that it took over two hours of squirming, talking, and singing before she fell asleep), this ferry trip was much, much better than the last. Once she was asleep, Rainbow slept fairly well on the nighttime ferry to Homer, and she was in good spirits during the day time ferry on the way back to Kodiak at the end of our trip. We even saw a few sea otters and several humpback whales.

While I spent the first half of our vacation sick in bed, T and Rainbow got to spend some quality time with Grandma and "Paka." T went halibut fishing with his dad twice and, as a result, filled our freezer with fish.

Rainbow and Farley were fascinated by each other.

 Once I was better, we did a little exploring of the beach at Anchor Point and some of the sights in nearby Homer.

Beach view in Anchor Point

Rainbow posing with a life-sized sea lion statue at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer

Walking through the Beluga Wetlands on the edge of Homer

Sandhill crane--a bird that links my home state, Nebraska, to my new state. We also saw several moose and a porcupine on the mainland--animals that we don't have in Kodiak.

While in Anchorage, we did two very important things--got some specialty medical services that we can't get in Kodiak (maybe that deserves its own blog post) and went shopping. We hate shopping, but the absence of sales tax combined with a large number of big stores (Super Wal-Mart! Target! And Cabela's! Oh, my!) compelled us to spend a chunk of our vacation pushing carts down aisles.

Sunset in Anchor Point

I love Kodiak and still think it's one of the the most beautiful places in the world, but it was nice to have a change of scenery for a while.  We're already discussing our next "escape." But every means of it--boat, kayak, ferry, plane, four-wheeler, etc.--costs money, something that has been in somewhat short supply for us these last few years (yes, because of choices we have made).   

T and I still don't know how we will handle the challenge of island life long term. A lot of people--even those who have money to get off-island regularly--can't handle it. But we remain determined to enjoy life in Alaska as fully as we can and hopeful that we can keep calling it home for quite a while. 

On eating things

One of the things I love about living in Alaska is the opportunity to gather foods from the wild, or to engage in "subsistence activities," the term used to describe various hunting and gathering activities of Native and rural Alaskans. I haven't gotten into it nearly as much as I've wanted to, although I was downright giddy last fall when we went berry picking. 

The breathtakingly beautiful Monashka Bay

Rainbow and her new favorite possession--a dessicated starfish

More recently, I became aware that fiddleheads, the curled up fronds of young spring plants, are edible. So a couple of weeks ago, on what was pretty much our first warm sunny day in Kodiak, I collected some fiddleheads during a hike at Monashka Bay. I had just enough for a side dish at dinner and yes, it was somewhat time-consuming to wash them, and no, my toddler didn't really eat any, but I felt very proud of myself for providing an interesting--and free!--component to the evening's meal.

I also have grand plans for harvesting seaweed and plan on some serious gathering of salmonberries, blueberries, cranberries, and maybe even mossberries (a.k.a. crowberries). 

More significantly, I have recently made the decision to eat fish. This is a big, big deal for me. I have been vegetarian since I was 12 years old. But I had a freezer filled with salmon and halibut caught my father-in-law in Alaska, a husband willing and able to catch more fish, and a toddler who demonstrated willingness to eat fish, and I had to make a decision. A couple of weeks ago, when we took a trip to the mainland, my husband caught three halibut, and I have to admit I am experiencing an intense sense of satisfaction at the thought that my freezer is full of sustainable, healthy, and hypoallergic (oh, yeah--we also discovered last week that Rainbow has a bunch of food allergies) protein. 

I've never lived any place before where sustainable gathering of wild foods was so possible and common. It was a bit of a surprise that I should come to Alaska--it's the land of igloos, and dog sleds, right? (ha, ha)--for that to happen.

Away we go

Let me back up a little.

A few weeks ago, T and I enacted our own miniature version of the film Away We Go. In the movie, a young couple, Burt and Verona, finding themselves expecting a baby and having no reason to continue living where they are, visit several cities in North America to try to find the right place to raise their child.

We felt a bit like Burt and Verona as we boarded a plane to begin a trip that would take us to Kodiak, Alaska, but we also knew there were some significant differences between us and them. First of all, the movie couple--conveniently enough--both have jobs that they can easily perform long distance. They also appear to have no concerns whatsoever about health insurance or finding and paying for prenatal and delivery care for their baby. Because they don't need to look for jobs and have no obvious financial concerns, Burt and Verona are able to consider several cities as possible new homes.

T and I, on the other hand, were limited to places where at least he could get a job. He was invited to Kodiak for a job interview, and I tagged along so I could check out the town and decide if it might be the place for our growing family. While T sweated in his interview suit, I had one day to get a sense of Kodiak's people, landscape, and options for shopping, health care, housing, and my future career.

Near the end of Away We Go, Burt and Verona seem to realize that they've been looking too hard, and too far away from themselves, than they need to. Again, very conveniently, Verona happens to have access to the old house in which she grew up in Mississippi. When she returns to the house as an adult, bringing Burt with her, they realize it's the perfect place to raise their child.

T and I have no such luxury as a free-for-the-taking large family house surrounded by old oak trees and sitting on the water. But in some ways, I guess, our story is turning out a bit like Burt and Verona's. We have decided to relocate to Alaska (although we'll move a few months after the baby's born). T grew up in Alaska. He's never lived on Kodiak Island, but he did spend a good chunk of his childhood on another Alaskan island.

So maybe this time we will be--more than we have any other time--going home.

Maybe.

Two Roads

Okay, so one of my favorite poets is Robert Frost. I know that's not very original for a former English instructor, but there's a reason he's so famous. His poems are really, really good. And I've been thinking a lot lately about this one:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

More of a green than a yellow wood, but whatever.

I have heard many a student suggest that "The Road Not Taken" reflects some kind of march-to-the-beat-of-a-different-drummer, make-your-own-way ethos. The road less traveled is the better one; that's what this poem means, they say.

But they're missing the point entirely. I can't say specifically what Frost's intentions were, but it's clear to me that the poem is about the narratives we construct retrospectively. Notice that even as the speaker suggests that one road looked better than the other, he neutralizes that statement. The paths were pretty much equal, from what he could see. He had to pick one. And it is only in the future, when he is looking back, that he will create the narrative that he chose the "less traveled" road. Of course the path he chooses will make "all the difference," but as he stands at the crossroads, he cannot know what that difference will be.

T and I are standing at a crossroads, looking down two paths and trying to decide which we should take. From where we're standing, they look in many ways equal, and we cannot know more about either without picking one, which will preclude our ever taking the other.

This happens to all of us over and over again in our lives; we encounter crossroads multiple times a day. Standing at a crossroads can be an exhilarating but also, sometimes, an excruciating and anxiety-provoking position. But T and I must choose a road soon, and I'm sure there will be sighs. We'll think back on the road we didn't take. We'll know our choice made a difference without knowing exactly what that difference is. I just hope we can avoid regret and enjoy the journey along each path that we choose.