Su 25 March 2018, 18:30; written from in a colectivo (shared cab) in Punta Arenas
… finished M 2 April 2018, 23:26; written from night bus traveling from Puerto Natales, Chile, to El Calafate, Argentina
As I stood with an armload of groceries in the checkout line of Lider, it finally hit me. Searching for a smile, I looked hard at my package of TimTams as I tried to fight back the tears beginning to well up in my eyes. It wasn’t working.
Before hailing a ride out to the mall, which is where the Walmart-like grocery store is, I’d said a preliminary goodbye to Sam, my last remaining crewmate in Punta Arenas. Tonight he and some college friends are leaving for Puerto Natales and the famous Torres del Paine; in the morning I’ll catch a bus heading south to Ushuaia and Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.
In the last month of our time in Antarctica, as well as during our voyage north on the Gould icebreaker and our few days in Punta Arenas, I told the crew that they’d get to see me shed tears at our farewell. For some reason Adam said he was looking forward to it.
At certain times during our final weeks, I teared up briefly. I had to blink back some sorrow the day we closed the Skua Shack, for although I’d be back in October, I knew it’d be different without Nai’s “chaotic happiness.”
We have a tradition of “Scotch guarding” – sipping scotch – in memory of fallen Antarctic fur seal study pups. With scotch, beer, and wine to consume the night before our pick-up, we toasted a few other happy and sad moments. With all of my bread baking and some help from the others in camp, we’d managed to use all of the white flour in camp by the last night– something Jesse, our resident NOAA Corps officer, did not think could ever be done.
Feeling proud of that fact, I raised my last Alaskan beer and toasted, “To the death of the flour!” When Jesse asked a second later, “Wait, who was deflowered?” I couldn’t handle it. In the Christmas light-lit darkness, first laughter came, then a few tears slid down my face as I recognized that the individual humors of our group would be gone from the norm in roughly a week. When someone saw the tears on my face and asked if I was crying, I had to step outside for a moment.
As the final Zodiac skiffs made their last laps between the beach and the Laurence M. Gould, I faced away from the beach and looked into the fluffy snow that was falling softly, adding to the few inches that had accumulated over the last few days. “Winter is coming,” I’d been telling the crew, and it made me less happy to leave than ever. Another few tears slid down my face as I gazed at the snowy scene that had been so unknown just 5 months earlier. It was home.
With those and other forgotten moments of sorrow, I thought the tears would flow easily at our goodbye in Punta Arenas. After all, I’d openly cried at the mere memory of New Zealand for practically no reason just a few weeks earlier. (It was pretty impressive. One minute the others were talking about rough break-ups, and when they asked about me, all I had to offer was a comparison of leaving NZ. Bam. Full on tears.)
Yet when the time for farewells outside the hotel Cabo de Hornos came, hugs were exchanged and brief words said, and then most of my friends were gone. Jefferson, Jesse, Nai, and Adam left for the airport in a van, leaving Sam and me standing on the sidewalk. How do you say a proper goodbye to the only people you’ve been around for months? Simple hugs, thank yous, and the suggestion to visit don’t do that kind of relationship justice.
No, the reality didn’t hit me until I was alone in the grocery store where we’d bought cartfuls of fancy cheeses, sausages, wine, and alcohol months before. My season had come full circle, and while I tried to use Nai’s rushed line of “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine,” – normally used when she was close to dropping a heavy tote on her head or running to check something in the oven – I smiled, but hearing that really only made me a little sadder.
** Don’t worry, I ended up with 2 more goodbyes to Sam. We ended up meeting again in Punta Arenas after our respective trips, and then he followed me by bus up to El Calafate. Seriously, he sat in the row behind me on 2 buses.