How I ended up in Alaska

From the Beach Bar to the Last Frontier: PART ONE

I made a lot of drastic moves after I returned from the road trip. I was struggling, daily, to get back to normalcy. Maybe because normalcy hadn’t existed since my mother died. The only constant since her funeral was change. I moved every few months. And then, for three years, I moved every few days.

And now I was “home.” But what was home? I felt like I had hit pause for three years, while everyone else seemed to have pressed fast forward in their lives. Married. Children. Secure jobs. It felt so disorienting. Coming back didn’t bring the comfort I had expected; it only made me feel more alone. I was desperate to find footing on Long Island, not because I wanted to be there, but because my family was there. Only the discomfort never left. And in many ways, it was what kept pushing me to keep uprooting myself in search of a new sense of “home.”

Last summer, I got closer than I ever had in Alaska.

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In March of 2023, I flew to St. John to shoot a wedding for a friend named Lindsey. She and her fiancé, Mark, were eloping, with only her best friend and the best friend’s husband joining them as witnesses. Our mutual close friend, Liz, was marrying them.

The ceremony was on Peace Hill. A beautiful spot on the North Shore, featuring an incredible ruins site and rarely any tourists. It looked out over the bay and was only a five-minute hike to get to. It was perfect, as Lindsey was wearing a full-fledged wedding dress, and it was a sweltering hot day.

She smiled the entire day, and he cried when he saw her. After the ceremony, we all had dinner together and then headed to the Beach Bar. It was there, on a stool in the corner of the bar, where Liz and I came up with the idea to move to Alaska.

At the time, Liz was a partial owner of USVI Expeditions, a guided adventure tour company in the Virgin Islands. She was feeling a bit run-down from the job and mentioned that she was looking for a change. I was returning to Long Island after the wedding and desperate for an excuse to pack up again and leave.

I threw out Alaska to her.

“I’d go to Alaska,” she responded to my absolute shock.

Due to the consumption of post-wedding cocktails, the rest of the conversation didn’t get very far before we changed the topic. But a few months later, we revisited it over the phone. A few weeks after that, we began to craft a plan.

When I went to Alaska on my road trip, it was the 48^th state of my 50. It was, by far, my favorite state. As a photographer, you would think it was the beauty of the state that would have drawn me in. But, as an empath, it was the beauty of the people that attracted me most. Their kindness. Their resilience. When I left the state in 2019, I vowed to go back. And then, I told everyone.

The thing about a dream, I realized a long time ago, is that if I kept telling others I was going to do it, it held me accountable. That’s how I ever got myself into Mom’s car and on the road in the first place. I had told too many people. I had to do it.

Liz and I spoke for hours that night over the phone. “Ok,” I said once we both knew we wanted to do it, “we just need three things. A car. A job. A place to live.”

“I’ll work on the car,” I added.

She told me she knew a girl who used to live in St. John who moved to Homer years ago. “I can reach out to my friend Allison,” she said.

Over the next few weeks, I reached out to my contact at Subaru and inquired about the possibility of a rental deal if I were to return to Alaska. After a few more weeks, my contact wrote back and said they could offer us the car for $500 per month.

We had a car.

Liz reached out to Allison and found out she was now working on an organic produce farm, Twitter Creek Gardens. The woman who owned and ran the farm was named Emily. She mentioned that she might have a cabin for rent. A few weeks later, Allison confirmed that Emily could rent the cabin to us.

We had a place to live.

I reached out to Emily and asked if she needed any help on the farm. I couldn’t think of a better option than being in Alaska, in the soil, learning how to grow food that I’d eventually eat. Because I had to leave at the end of August for my wedding season back in New York, I wasn’t the best candidate for the only position she had available.

It wasn’t until we had booked flights and were about three weeks out that Emily wrote back again. She mentioned that she had been thinking about it, and it made sense that if I were staying in the cabin on their property, I would be a good fit for the farm. She sent me the job requirements, and we scheduled a phone call to discuss them.

I had a job.

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I landed in Anchorage on June 1, 2024. I had just packed up my stuff in Long Island and jumped on a plane. Liz had a more challenging and emotional journey.

She had left the Virgin Islands permanently after living there for the last 14 years. She had to say goodbye to her Island cat, her apartment, her friends, and her business. And then, she had flown to her parents’ home in North Carolina. She traded out her flip-flops for wool socks and boots. And then, she was surprised by her girlfriend, who trekked to North Carolina just to fly with her to Alaska and say goodbye. Mia was living in California at the time, so they were already in a long-distance relationship.

Mia was with us for dinner on our first night in Alaska and the following day until about 3 p.m., when she had to take a flight back to work in San Francisco.

And then it was just the two of us.

It was a weird energy in the car as we drove those four hours to Homer that day. We were both excited, of course. But Liz was also sad. She had to say goodbye to her partner for the next three months. They had just spent the last few days together, and it had reminded her how nice it was to be in each other’s presence instead of only on the phone like they were forced to do most of the time. And now, here they were again, saying goodbye with no chance of seeing each other in person until the fall. She was, as she would call it throughout the next few months, “lovesick,” and the sadness of that energy was palpable in the car that day. It was a contrast to the absolute high I was feeling. I had done it! I was back in Alaska! I couldn’t believe things had fallen into place. I had always said I would be back, and here I was heading to a job on a farm for the summer. The thought of sitting in the dirt, working with my hands after slumping in front of a computer for the last few months writing or editing photos, felt incredible. I was beyond excited. And next to me, my friend sat quietly with a heavy heart. She had just left her life, packed her things, and said goodbye to her girlfriend.

Shortly after we made the turn toward Homer on the Sterling Highway, though, things started to shift. The views had been incredible all along, but now they were surreal. The mountains reflected perfectly in Kenai Lake as we drove through Cooper Landing. And then, out of nowhere, we noticed a moose running alongside our car on the highway.

A few miles outside of Homer, we stopped at a pull-off and looked to our right. There, in the middle of the field, was a mother moose and two twin babies. The babies were nursing. We sat there in absolute awe. I snuck out of the car with my camera to capture it, but, as I would learn over the next few months, it was impossible to capture the beauty of Alaska in a way that would evoke the same feelings as when you saw it. It was almost as if I was holding my breath some days as I looked around, afraid it wasn’t real.

Once we drove through town, we turned left to make our way up to Ohlson Mountain Road. It was about a 20-minute drive before we finally got to the dusty dirt road. To our right, you could see the Homer Spit. Even though it was past 9 p.m., it felt like the middle of the day with the sun still out. It was another five minutes down the road before we saw the turn for Harbinson Lane. We were going to be living in Fred Harbinson’s old homestead.

We pulled into the small circular driveway and shut off the car.

A tiny cabin with antlers above the door stood in front of us. Inside, the kitchen floor was painted red beneath the large, brightly colored rug. On the walls hung cast-iron pans, including a muffin pan that I used far more than I would have expected over the next few weeks. A rocking chair sat in the corner, and beside it, a small wooden table with two wooden chairs. It was where we would eat dinner and play cards the rest of the summer.

I walked outside to check the outhouse. Liz and I joked about how this might be the “best view from the loo” we had ever seen. The door swung wide to a breathtaking view of the mountains, wildflowers dotting the field in front of the little house.

Something about the stillness and simplicity of it all caught me off guard. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I had felt this kind of peace.

Was I finally home?

*to be continued.