Exotic turns ordinary with time

Midway through sorting the station mail, I made an interesting realization: I know everyone here. Every last name on a letter is familiar to me, and as I’m putting away the postcards and envelopes, I have something to say about everyone – oh, she’ll be happy to have finally received this card; oh, I’m working with him on a project tomorrow. It is hard to remember a time when I first stepped off the plane, a stranger.

With that realization came a second one: The South Pole has become a home that I no longer think about as “strange” or “exotic.” Living in Antarctica at the bottom of the world has become normal.

All of those weird eccentricities that once boggled my mind – 24 hours of daylight, constant subzero temperatures, no plants or animals, and two-minute showers – are facts of my life that I no longer pause to think about. I wear my work-issued Carhartt overalls six days a week, and I don’t note the loss of a more varied wardrobe. I sleep outside in a canvas structure that is now as familiar to me as my own childhood tree house (and about as luxurious). I used to count out the seconds of my less-than-two-minute showers; now I just take them without thinking about it because water conservation is second nature.

As the season starts to wrap up, project deadlines loom in the next month. We have begun to talk about redeployment and our post-Antarctica plans, and I realize how much I’ll miss being here.

I’ll miss the people, of course. I have never lived anywhere else where you are in such an adventurous, diverse community: tradesman, Ph.D.s and people long past retirement. I’ll certainly miss the sound of Rose the fuelie’s laugh echoing across the galley, and the sight of swing shifters getting up and eating cereal at 2 p.m.

I’ve grown accustomed to the carpenters all volunteering in the dish pit, joking around and laughing as they take our plates, somehow energetic after a long day of putting up siding. In the galley, Megan is explaining some of her day’s bulldozer work to a table of scientists, making elaborate layouts of the Ice Cube drill camp and the surrounding snow with the table condiments. And Froggy’s Monday morning safety talks have wound their way into my routine, stern or fascinating lectures that are always punctuated with some ridiculous personal anecdote of near brushes with death.

As much as I’ve come to know the people here, the unique rhythms of my daily life have become equally intrinsic. I’ve grown accustomed to the smell of AN8 fuel, and the feel of climbing up the fuel tanks, hand-over-hand, ready to dip the tank level. My chilling morning walk from the Jamesways to the station is routine, as is watching how the bulldozers have changed the topography of our drifts again during the night. I’ll miss the anticipation of mail and freshies when I’m gone, and the satisfaction of climbing all seven flights of stairs from the low-level power plant to reach the main station.

On a Tuesday afternoon I walk up from the garage through an unheated tunnel system of hallways, side by side with my “older brother” mechanics. The route breaks once into open air, but none of us ever wears a coat on this short walk to lunch; we keep our hands in our pockets and are temporarily blinded by the frozen clouds of our own breath. A coffee can of solid ice serves as a doorstop, and I no longer think it odd that it will never get warm enough to risk it thawing. We stop to chat with a carpenter walking in the opposite direction.

“You coming back next season, Meg-the-Mainer?” he asks me.

I smile slowly. “Maybe. Yeah. I hope to. You never know, do you?”

Yes, the South Pole is a home to me now, one of many that I have made. I never would have imagined that this season of exploration would come to feel so ordinary and comfortable. But there you have it, sometimes the beauty of discovery is when the amazement and newness is replaced by the intimacy of finding your own place. Maybe I will come back, back to Amundsen-Scott or to a new Antarctic adventure. You never do know, do you?

Meg Adams, who grew up in Holden and graduated from John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, shares her Antarctic experiences with readers each Friday. For more about her adventure, information about Antarctica and to e-mail questions to her, go to the BDN Web site: bangordailynews.com.