When I wrote my first book I was run over by a truck. Literally. So I’m used to how the universe encourages humility and emphasizes what really matters. While my daughter was in labor last Friday, one of the many calls to my cell phone was a number I didn’t recognize. As a new Haines borough assembly member I get calls from folks not on my contact list that are important, so after the second or maybe third call, I answered it, and was congratulated by the president of the Alaska Humanities Forum for receiving the 2017 Governor’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities.
Normally, this would have been huge– but there was a baby entering the world which eclipsed it. The good news as you know, is that Molly Frances and her mother all came through with flying colors, healthy and well– (they are thriving!) and that the official announcement on the award would be the following week anyway, so there would be an opportunity to pop the champagne cork.
Except then we had a tough, two-day borough assembly meeting, and the same evening the local borough manager was fired, the forum made the award announcement in a press release. The local meeting was hard, and a lesson as well in humility and grace and civic responsibility, especially on the part of my fellow assembly woman and friend Margaret, who contrary to one account on the radio, did not throw axes– no one did– rather she (and we all) tossed life ring after life ring that went uncaught. Still, afterwards, of course no one felt like celebrating. It was a somber and serious decision not made lightly. (Read the KHNS story)
I guess now I will wait until the banquet in Juneau on January 26 to celebrate my honor, and the other great news, is that there will be a friend at my table– Lani Hotch from Klukwan will also be there, as she too is a recipient of an award this year!
One more thing that happened yesterday, is that the essay “Give Me a Paddle and a Life Jacket” I wrote for the Salmon Project anthology (UA Press 2016) edited by Nancy Lord has been posted on-line with photographs. I liked writing this very much and grateful for the opportunity to see it shared– and hope you like it, too. (And in an odd twist of Karmic timing, my friend Margaret and her husband John are in it.)
