Sometimes the cold can catch you before you even step outside. It's this characteristic dryness that finds me first – off-guard, of course. In seconds, my fingers seem to chap and crack around the nail, static electricity takes a hold of my hair, and I cannot seem to re-apply Burt's Bees chapstick quite often enough. I lick my lips in sweet surrender, remembering an eccentric that I met at Bamboo restaurant in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, who is going to market her line of natural products as "Better than Burt's". “What a statement!”, I thought to myself for a second time.

The above is an excerpt of what I recall from an internal monologue on Anchorage's runway aboard Alaskan Airlines flight 83 from Seattle. Or, at least that's where I think I'd just come from; it's easy to lose track of time and locations of airports when one is merely (and in my case, often mindlessly) stepping off one plane only to get on to another. I think it's amazing that I've never missed a flight, actually. In the last few weeks I've made abbreviated visits to Managua, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, Honolulu, Kahului, Anchorage and Dillingham's airports, and after much travel to and fro and back again, in earnest I can say I'm so grateful to ground and to root into a routine for awhile. Perhaps this “seeking to settle” sentiment will pass and wanderlust will whisk me away once again, or, maybe not. I said this recently to my good friend, Bing, who instantly shot back with “Elise, you can't stop traveling! I live vicariously through you.”

But anyway, continuing on with more “plane” banter, my first twenty-four hours on the ground in Alaska were also a touch turbulent. Our PenAir flight arrived in gusty Dillingham with flurries flying all around us. I had only a light jacket suitable for ~50ºF weather, and I'm quite sure the thermometer read somewhere below zero. Or at least it felt this way – having spent the previous ten days in Maui, and the two months before that in Nicaragua, I'm certain my barometer was most likely a bit tropically biased. Automobile trouble complicated matters, and a grim forecast forced me to RON – remain over night – in Aleknagik so that I could be sure to make it to school on-time the following morning. At Ravensview my suitcases sprang open, and in haste I randomly grabbed wrinkled wintry garments that seemed to be clean, leaving a messy heap of odds and ends to be dealt with at a later date. I jumped in a Mazda truck to the landing, and gratefully caught a ride with Mr. Ambrosier – our school principal – on his “snowmachine” across the lake. Here in Alaska, snowmobiles are “snowmachines”, and boats are called “skiffs”.

Now finally – two weeks later – I feel as though I've re-established firm footing, and I keep having these “Oh my goodness I'm in Alaska!” gratitude moments. Everything about life here is unique; I drive a snowmachine to school in the morning, and in my classroom I have three adorable and audacious kindergarten kids – Ayden, Jacob and Thomas. I'm also teaching yoga adjunct through the University of Alaska – Bristol Bay campus. My students range from 22 to 70 – and are such an dynamic, enthusiastic and open-minded group. Our numbers continue to swell well over the class limit, and still, I continue to let more in! I figure, why not? After all, it's in the spirit of yoga and we definitely have enough floor space. This is Elise, signing out with love from Dillingham, Alaska.

There is...

“a language in the world that everyone understands...the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.” (Coelhlo – pg. 62) I've just finished Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, a story about a shepherd boy from Andalusia manifesting his Personal Legend. Santiago's quest begins with a re-currant dream of a journey to the Egyptian pyramids. He is encouraged by a gypsy to realize this dream, as well as a mysterious king, who tells Santiago: “To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation...And, when you want something, all of the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” (pg. 171)

The Alchemist has been translated into fifty-six languages, and more than twenty million copies have been sold around the world. Across cultures and continents, the story touches something we – all people – have in common, a yearning to become that which we long for in our hearts. As we grow up, we can tend to confuse this internal longing with external expectations, lose trust in living out our own truths, or forget our dreams altogether. But, even when this happens, the universe still affords us opportune moments to re-connect with our Personal Legends. “Awakening” and “Enlightenment” are two words that can describe this connection. More important than these occurrences by themselves though, is what we choose to do (or not to do) with our personal revelations.

People metaphorically talk about forks in the road – the places we arrive at a particular point in time where we must make a decision to go left or right – but I believe a more appropriate analogy (at least in my life) might be to make a comparison to a roundabout. I first came into contact with the roundabout on a road trip to the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia. Sitting in the passenger seat, navigating these road constructs seemed easy enough, but behind the wheel, I was utterly and entirely clueless.

Zooming fast forward five years and a bit, and I still find myself pondering driving related analogies; I'm in Maui on holiday, and the Sat Navi Tom Tom in our rental car expeditiously takes us anywhere we wish to go. Gone are the days of pulling over, rolling down a window and asking a random someone for Grey Poupon – I mean, directions. We don't even have to have specific locations in mind; Tom Tom readily suggests fine dining, suitable accommodation and excellent entertainment. Here again, I realize there are so many choices to choose from in life.

So here's my question, or perhaps I should say, here are my questions: with an array of options in life – from those we're presented with day-to-day, to the more formative decisions that impact our lives on a greater scale – what are the criteria we utilize to weigh out our options? What do we believe is possible and why? How are we limited; how are we limitless? Where do we place priority – is it within a relationship, or at a specific location, having fidelity to a journey, or in pursuit of a particular purpose? Are these existentially separate, or could these priorities coalesce? What does our Personal Legend look like? Or, what do our Personal Legends look like? As we grow and change, are our callings doing the same? Are we attentive to this? Are we truly in touch with our hearts? And, do we have the courage to live out our longings? Hmmmmm...aloha, this is Elise, signing out with love from Maui.