A blurred spaceholder for Master Chef Nephi Craig

In my last entry, I stated that I would post my piece on Master Chef Nephi Craig before I went to bed tonight, but I encountered a little difficulty. On the evening that I spent with Nephi, the kitchen was super busy and the pace extremely fast and while I got the pictures I need to tell the story, there was never a point where I could sit down and do any kind of interview with Nephi, but I wasn't concerned, because I figured I could communicate with him later via internet and telephone.

But the internet is down at the White Mountain Apache Tribe's Sunrise Park Ski Resort where Nephi works and I can't reach him by phone, either. So I will hold off until tomorrow and see if somehow I can find a way to communicate with him.

If I can't, then I will just go ahead and run my picture story without the info I was hoping to get. It will still work. Readers will still get the idea, just minus a few specifics.

In the meantime, here is a very blurry picture of Nephi, right in the middle, framed by two thumbs and wearing dark-rimmed glasses, at work with his all-Apache kitchen staff. This is one of those incidents that I referred to in my last post, when the knob on my camera rubbed against something, probably me as I was switching cameras in a hurry so that I could get this shot, and in the process knocked my shutter speed down to some ridiculously slow speed.

Still, you can see that the kitchen is very busy, fast-paced place. I will attempt to bring it all into better focus tomorrow. For now, I will just state that Nephi has studied the culinary arts in top chef schools all the way from Arizona to Japan and has become highly skilled in the arts of French and Japanese cuisine, among other types of cooking. Even as he did so, he always believed that there was no finer food to be found in this world than the Apache food that he grew up with, along with other Native American foods originating from across the hemisphere - all the way from South America right up here to Alaska.

Now, as a master chef and the head chef at an Apache-owned restaurant, he has set out to prove his case.

More later.

Tim and Wesley go to Abby's; Wesley's truck gets away from him; Wesley launches a recovery mission

As has been happening every night since my return from India, I dozed off maybe a few minutes before midnight, slept pretty good for awhile and then woke up at about 1:30 AM, unable to really sleep any more, although I stayed in bed and tried pretty hard and did manage to pass in and out of a state of semi-sleep. Before I went to bed, I had already determined that no matter what, I would have breakfast at Abby's today.

I came out of one of those semi-sleeps at 5:45. I thought I might as well get up and instead of Abby's, go to Mat-Su Family Restaurant, because they open at 6:00 and Abby does not open until 9:00. I hadn't seen any of my Family Restaurant breakfast acquaintances since before I left for Arizona and India, so maybe it was time.

But no, my stomach was set on Abby's. Plus, things are pretty tight right now and I couldn't really afford to go to Family, but Chris and Arlene Warrior are still buying me breakfast at Abby's once or twice a week as their thank you to me for photographing the wedding of their daughter, Aurora, to Robert Standifer.

So I did not get up until about 7:30, then, feeling groggy, headed to Abby's.

Shortly after I set down, Tim Mahoney walked through the door. "Hi Bill!" he said, then sat down at my table. Abby brought him the cowboy cup she keeps just for him and filled it up with coffee.

Tim had come with his grandson, Wesley, who just turned six. Wesley ordered pancakes and eggs. Grandpa, who dotes on his grandson, cut them up for him.

Tim asked me a bit about the Arizona part of my trip and where Margie was from. The words "Apache" and "Arizona" inspired two stories in him. The first was about a time when he drove through the Mescalero Apache reservation in South Central New Mexico. Like the White Mountain Apache, the Mescalero live in high country where elevations ranging from 5400 to 12,000 feet.

Tim was so impressed by the beauty of Mescalero country that he felt like he just wanted to stop his car, get out and go lay down on the earth - "lay down on my Mother's breasts," was how he put it.

Once again, I was reminded of the painful fact that this life is just too short, for I, too, felt the sudden desire to go back to my wife's country during certain times of the year when the sky above the highlands is so deep and blue, the air cool but not cold and to just lie down upon the breasts of Mother Earth. So many places I want to go, want to see, want to spend time in - including every place that I have ever been. I want to linger in those places, to know them intimately as a baby upon his mother's breast knows his mother intimately - and all the while to better get to know Alaska, top to bottom.

But there just isn't time. Life zips by so damn fast. Inside me, I still feel that I am a young man; I believe I am a young man; I picture myself as young man, I have the goals, desires and ambitions of a young man, but I am on the very cusp of becoming an old man. There is so much I still want to do, so many places to spend time in. It can't be done.

Thw other story was about a man, a finisher, half-Apache, half-African American who Tim worked with on a construction job in Kasilof. The man was the fastest finisher Tim had ever seen. After the concrete had been poured into the form, he strapped trowels to each of his knees, took two more trowels, one in each hand, then got down on the unset concrete on all fours and smoothed it out with such speed and finese that Tim and the other workers could only gape in amazement.

He also had a story about Wesley, who he told me has an innate sense of direction unlike anything Tim has seen in anyone else - kind of like his own internal gps system. Tim told me how they had driven down to a place in Kasilof over a year ago. Then, a year later, they drove back to that place. As they drove, Wesley would tell them to turn this way here, that way there, right to the place.

As for this valley, he knows the way back to any place where he has ever been, Tim said.

"If I took him up north," he spoke of the Arctic Slope, where he has done much village work, "I would never get him back." He explained that the people would love him because no matter where he would go, be it sea ice or tundra, he would always know where he was, where he had been and where he was going.

Abby took a look at the teeth that chomp through her pancakes.

Wesley got up and roamed around for a bit as I listened to more of Tim's stories. The stories were interesting, so I was not really paying much attention to Wesley. Then I noticed that he was very interested in something beneath the next table.

What could it be?

It was Wesley's toy truck. It had gotten away from him and disappeared beneath the table. Wesley crawled under to retrieve it.

Wesley recovered his truck. Abby's Home Cooking. She named her restaurant well. Abby's HOME Cooking. 

Soon it came time to leave. Tim helped Wesley into his jacket.

Then Abby gestured for a hug. She got it, too - but one thing that is really aggravating about this camera I am using most of the time is that the knob that controls the shutter speed continually changes it when I move around and it rubs against something - me mostly. For some reason, it most often changes the speed downward.

Then I shoot without realizing and get motion blue, because my shutter speed is at some ridiculously slow number for fast, hand-held, shooting - like 1/15 of second. Despite the blur, I use a lot of those pictures, anyway, if I think they still tell the story, but sometimes they are blurred beyond hope.

The hug was blurred beyond hope, but be assured, Abby got her hug.

Now, I know that there are some people in India who must be growing very impatient with me. They wait to see my pictures of Sujitha and Manoj's wedding, and of the other stories I shot there. And there is a master chef on the White Mountain Apache Reservation who is probably also getting a bit impatient with me.

So, beginning with the master chef, whose story I plan to post before this day ends, and then moving straight back into India, I will return to my travels. I am struggling with this a bit, because I shot a lot. I had hoped to have done a preliminary edit of the entire take by now, but I have taken a first, quick, look at less than five percent of the India take; maybe 60 percent of the Arizona take.

It is a monstrous task. I shot over 500 gigabytes. How the hell do I deal with that? Especially when it is a struggle to keep my eyes open. For example, it is 6:21 PM right now. I actually started to edit the pictures for this little story at about 1:45 PM. By 2:00 PM, I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, so I went and laid down on the couch, where Chicago joined me for a nap. I didn't want to take a nap. I wanted to keep working, but I had no choice. I HAD to lay down and if not to really nap, to at least close my eyes. My body refused to let me do anything else.

Then I had to struggle to get up and go get my afternoon coffee at Metro before Carmen closed at 4:00. So this is the kind of thing I face. But I have many things to do and must get it all done, so that is what I am going to do.

Master Chef Nephi Craig, son of Vincent Craig - you are up next - before I go to bed tonight.* After that - back to India. I will try to make at least two posts every day, one from here in Wasilla, one or two from India/Arizona, until I am done.

And I've got to launch my store. I don't know how to do it, but I've got to do it, if I am ever to begin to figure out how to make this blog the foundation of my livelihood - a seemingly impossible task that I must do.

Train on the floor, Super Cub over head, bunny rabbits and moose at the window, dog in car, young writer turns 21, boys leaving

Kalib and Jobe have been staying with us for a few days, because their dad was suffering some minor pain that could be major if they jumped on him. Last night, Lavina and Lynxton joined them here, allegedly to give dad even a little more space, but I suspect Mom got pretty homesick to see her two older boys.

This morning, I came out of my office and found them all intently watching something. What could it be?

I was going to run around and take a picture from the other side so that you could see their eyes all focused on Thomas as he rolled 'round his track, but when I tried, Kalib came, too, and took the controls. Then Jobe started to come. Kalib was wary, because Jobe can go into Jobezilla mode at any time and wreck Thomas and his tracks.

It worked out okay, though. Jobezilla did not wreck Thomas. Jobe brought another Thomas onto the scene.

After that, I went for a walk. Soon, I heard pistons pumping and a prop beating the air, the volume and pitch rising. I knew it was an airplane, flying low, coming towards me. I looked and sure enough, it was this Super Cub. I wanted to be up there, not down here, but I was down here.

Two ravens held a discussion in the lower reaches of the sky.

Further on, a pickup stopped beside me. The driver wanted to introduce to his new dog, Juneau. This is Juneau. Sadly, his old dog got sick and died. I have a number of photos of that dog, too, whose name slips me - but it is recorded in my old blog, Wasilla, Alaska by 300 and Then Some.

As I neared my house, I saw Dan walking. Dan lives on the corner of Sarah's Way and Seldon, where the domestic bunny rabbits that proliferated in the neighborhood last summer tended to bunk down. By the end of summer, there were many rabbits. I asked Dan if any had survived the winter. Three had, he told me, and now there was one more, so there were four.

Not long after I returned home, two of the bunny rabbits made an appearance in our driveway.

Lynxton made his appearance inside.

I stopped by Metro Cafe at the usual time. Carmen informed that today was the 21st birthday of the young writer, Shoshana. Twenty-one is still young. She will be a young writer for some time to come yet.

As I drove home, I saw this boy running alongside a hill.

Not long after I returned home, two yearling moose calves took the place of the bunny rabbits in our driveway. One of them had a stare-down with Kalib. Neither frightened the other.

Lavina and the boys had planned to stay one more night and leave tomorrow, but Kalib got lonesome for his dad, so his mom decided to take them home tonight. Caleb said goodbye to Lynxton.

The boys got buckled in...

...and then Lavina drove off with them. I do not remember precisely what the time was, but I believe it was a bit after 8:00 PM. Before I left home, Alaska still had the shortest days of anyone in the country. Now Alaska has the longest - growing steadily longer the further north you go.

India and Arizona never get really long days - although this time of year Arizona gets a longer day than India does. Still, compared to Alaska, Arizona's spring and summer days are short. Even though I have been home for a week now, come night, I am still a bit overwhelmed by the lingering light.

It doesn't help solve this persistent jet lag problem, though. If anything, it just makes me feel sleepier. And I forgot to buy Melatonin today. So I guess I will go to bed pretty soon, then sleep for two or three hours again, then wake up, groggy again, not able to sleep or fully function.

Still, I functioned better today than I did yesterday. Today was the first day that I made what felt like some significant accomplishments. So maybe, despite how I feel right now, I am making progress.

All Wasilla: study of the young writer, Shoshana; the girl who walked away from the school bus; raven hops off dead tree

It has been a long time since I have run one of my universe-wide famous Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshona - so here she is:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #1,000,003: she stirs my Americano.

This is the girl who walked away from the school bus. The temperature soared to 44 searing degrees today (6.7 C). Snow is melting fast.

I spotted this raven perched atop this dead tree. I stopped and waited to see if it would hop off and how it would look when it did.

Sure enough, the raven hopped off. And this is how it looked when it did.

And be sure - I have at least two more White Mountain Apache stories coming and at least four or five more from India. I intend to finish them all before the end of next week - but none tonight. 

Physically, I still feel very strange. It is still hard for me to function. It is just about 11:00 PM right now - still pretty early for me, but I cannot keep my eyes open. I cannot think. I cannot write. I will go to bed soon. Then, if tonight proves the same as every other night that I have been home - almost one week now, I will fall asleep almost immediately - a rare thing for me, but something I have done maybe every night. Then I will wake up sometime between 12:30 AM and 2:30 AM and I won't be able to go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I will once again feel like hell, just as I did today, as I did yesterday. I take Melatonin almost every night, but now it occurs to me that I ran out of Melatonin after I reached Phoenix, before I returned to Wasilla.

Maybe that is why I can't adjust.

I had better buy some Melatonin tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.

Not far from the place under the sky where she was born, Margie and I walked on her Apache land where we had walked 38 years before

Margie first brought me home to her native village of Carrizo, Arizona, on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation for Christmas Vaction - 1973-74. She had been a little worried about it, because she was not 100 percent certain how her parents would react to her bringing a white man who would soon marry her home to Indian Country, but her parents and family all greeted and accepted me warmly - as mine had her.

After we got a good night's sleep, we took a long walk together along Carrizo Creek, the little river that joins with Corduroy Creek right on the edge of her village of 100 people and then flows on a rapid descent down to the Salt River in the deep canyon of the same name.

It was a magical walk. The sun shone brightly, the sky was clean, pure, and deep blue. Here and there tiny patches of snow held their place in the shadows in air that was a few degrees above freezing. Water flowed slowly down the creek, but there were many pools and puddles covered by a thin layer of ice and air - the air being trapped between the ice and the water.

We would bounce small rocks across the ice, causing it to sing as they skipped over it. Sometimes, we would throw the rocks in high arc and then they would penetrate the ice, which would tinkle like shattering glass as the rocks broke through.

Best of all, I experienced all this with this young, beautiful woman whose long, wavy, raven-black hair tumbled over her shoulders and who was about to commit the rest of her life to being with me.

As those familar with us know, Margie has broken her knee twice since 2009 and she walks much slower than she used to. Rough or rocky terrain is difficult for her to navigate. She hardly ever walks with me any more and when she does, we walk at a slow pace and don't go very far.

After we reached Carrizo on the afternoon of February 21, I told her I was going to take a walk along Carrizo Creek.

"I will go with you," she said.

I was surprised. I had not expected her to come. I thought it would be too hard for her.

We walked down the hill from the house where her mother now lives. Here she is, approaching Carrizo Creek, me right behind her.

The sky was clear, clean and deep blue - just as it had been that first day. The temperature was somewhere between 55 and 60 degrees, so of course there were no snow patches, no sheets of ice covering pools in the creek. In fact, in places where we had found pools back then, we now found dry earth.

Back then, we had used stepping stones on our many treks back and forth across the several braided channels of the creek. Now, there seemed to be no need of stepping stones

Margie found a good stick and made it a walking stick.

On that first walk, we had stopped many times to pick up and examine the rocks along the creek. We took a few with us. This is something Margie always does when we stop along a creek, river, or beach anywhere. She did so this time, too - including this basalt remnant of a once firey volcano.

Right out in the middle, we found a little bit of water, flowing through the main channel.

Margie tossed a couple of rocks into the water.

On that first walk, we had found a couple of enalmalware pots and pans in good condition, so we took them home. In the five years that we would soon spend living on the reservation, we would almost always find a couple of such pans or even coffee pots and teakettles whenever we would walk in Carrizo Canyon.

We saved many of them, but we don't have any of them, now.

On this day, Margie found another - old, rusted, pocked and weathered.

While the damage to the pot could have been caused by current slamming it against rocks, Margie also reasoned that the pot might have been crushed and left along the creek as part a mourning ceremony for a loved one lost in death, so she put it back down. We left it behind. Someone had shot it once.

It would be carried away the next time the river rose - which, given the snow that later fell in the mountains and the hot weather that has followed since, has probably already happened.

Margie's place of birth is further up the canyon, in the open air, where a wickiup once stood. I have often written about how weary she has grown of Alaskan winters - oh yes, she loves Alaska and wants to keep Alaska as home - but she is ready to return to her Native Apache home for the winters.

Given all that she has sacrificed to follow me and settle in Alaska, I believe this is something we are going to need to figure out how to do - and soon, while she can still enjoy it.

I don't know how. Sometimes, it feels impossible.

But we must do it.

When we do, for however many months we are down there, I will miss Alaska and its magnificent winter like crazy, but it is something we must do, a sacrifice I must make. But then, look how great her own Apache country is. 

See? Just look at her - at home, looking about at the quiet stillness of the Apache place that created her.

I think it is a sacrifice I can adapt to - so long as it is seasonal and we keep returning to Alaska.

Margie, in her Native Apache land.

Margie, in her Native Apache land... where the two of us took a walk, decades ago.

If you look closely at some of the trees in some of the pictures above, you will see little clumps of something high up in the branches - mistletoe. During that first walk we shared here, I found mistletoe lying upon the ground. I held it over her head and then when she discovered what I was doing - we kissed. There was heat in the kiss, and passion. More kisses followed quickly thereafter.

Whenver I needed another, I just picked up another sprig of fallen mistletoe - there was plenty of it.

Now, I held the mistletoe over her again. We kissed again.

Maybe only once, and perhaps there was not as much heat - but still it was mighty nice.

Some rocks are too big to pick up and examine, too big to carry home, but not too big to stop and look at.

We did not walk as far or as long this time as we had back during Christmas vacation of '73-'74. Still, where I had expected to now walk alone, we had walked together where we had walked all those years before.

Then we walked back up the hill, toward her mother's house.

When we reached the top of the hill, we saw the school bus departing. It had just dropped students off that it had brought back from school in Whiteriver, 25 miles away.