Reflections of Alaska.

There is no sense in talking if you are doing the walking, whatever I read, listen to, witness first hand, I put to the test, I put it to practice for no matter how short of long it may be. Albeit meditation, Hatha Yoga or the yoga of postures, or Raja Yoga or the Yoga of the mind, sending sound waves through my head like i am doing at this moment, controlling my breath while I am feeling like I am about to have a stroke, you name it I do it. I have slept in the jungle and deserted temples, I have sat in grave yards and sketched and i have commercial fished in the Aleutian Chain, or the Bering Sea. I hiked through Colombia and Ecuador and even managed to smuggle a bag of Colombian Gold, (Marijuana),through the Miami Airport, just to test my guts if not stupidity. I once sat on top of a rock formation that stood tall like a column out a few yards from the shore in Alaska and was carried away that i found myself stranded when the tide had risen and had to practically swim back to shore in the cold frigid waters. Fortunately there were no witnesses to laugh at my stupidity.

When I reached my destination in Sandpoint, Alaska, a small Aleut fishing community, that the fishermen called, the One Horse Town, I had no money and no place to stay. It was a harsh place with only eight tress growing and the rest being a Tundra type of landscape. I was not scared but as a matter of fact was resigned to die having accomplished what I had set out to do; go fishing in Alaska. I ended up living among the folks of Sandpoint better off than most of the fishermen who went there to fish, those that had came from the 'Lower 48s'. Not only did I have a good bed and good food to eat, I was also able to fly from island to island making deliveries of food and liquor to the natives courtesy of my Bush pilot friend who asked me along for company. I flew and saw the bird's eye view of snow covered mountains and even around a volcano that was spewing our muddy clouds of smoke into the sky, views one only sees in documentary movies and often while stoned or drunk at that. Not even the native boys had this opportunity my friend Dwight Blackburn the Cessna pilot once told me, but I was good company he admitted. My one regret is that i did not have a good camera with me or failed to carry one along. 

My fishing trip in the Bering seas was short but full of fantastic and often scary experiences which I can never forget for as long as I live. I saw things and scenes that can only be describe as out of this world. Every so often I would reflect upon the fact that there I was a kid who grew up in a mangrove swamp of Kampung Selut, (Muddy Village), having the time of my life and few to share it with and who among my childhood friends or family would believe me and it cost me next to nothing except for the food and fares of getting there. In essence, I bought me a one way ticket to Alaska and survived the raw deal. I had one of the most beautiful lady for my companion  and she ran the only restaurant in town and what more could a man want. I made good money selling my artworks than fishing and at the end of the first year was able to vacation in Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia together with my partner.

One lesson I learned from my journey was that, you never look back and as the saying goes, you burn your bridges behind you. You overcome your fears of the unknown or what lies ahead and that the worse that can happen is that you die and no one in your family back home will know about it. In short thee was nothing to loose but life itself. In all the years that I had lived in the United States I had made one phone call to my home in Malaysia and talked to my father who talked me out of my despair and ending my life by suicide. This happened when I was living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I also received one letter from my eldest brother to inform me that my father had passed away later on when I was living in San Francisco. I had relocated to Malaysia in 1998 after having lived in Japan for three years with my late wife and two children. What I have gathered from my wanderings in the past has now become a fading memory, However thanks to my art journals and collection of pictures and notes, most of these memories still lay fresh in my mind. It is said that most artists have photographic memories, I think I am among those lucky ones.
# Aleutian Chains,# Bering Sea,# San Francisco, #UWGB,#Alaska