Nothing can change all the good that came from Crossings

By Valerie Massie

Have you ever been awake?

Have you ever seen up close the blue in ravens’ wings, the green between waves, the lightness at the end of a hard-lived day?

Have you ever let the world just be around you?

Have you ever heard the clicker-clack of rocks on the beach in the dark when no one else is awake? When your heart is pounding in your throat as you fumble for the warm headlamp against your neck and the cold canister by your sleeping bag?

Have you ever tried to harness the ocean with two slim paddles, rain lashing sideways and wind shearing the last pulses of warmth from your skin, with miles and miles to go before you sleep?

Have you ever raged inside against the parents or the people or the history, the ignorance or the apathy that create “troubled” teens? Have you ever felt sad, and you don’t know why?

Have you ever felt the change in the air when a group of strangers learns to trust each other?

Have you ever filled your lungs with air that’s almost rain?

Have you ever felt that first flush of hot water after weeks of wilderness, when your whole body sighs? Have you smelled a storm coming and knew it was going to be OK? Have you ever seen your campfire glowing amber in the dark?

Have you ever found your people? Laughed and danced until your heart was full two times over? Craved nothing more than the steam swirling off a summer morning’s cup of coffee?

Have you ever seen a jaded 17-year-old finally let themselves be a kid?

Have you ever watched a child grow?

Realized how good you have it?

Each of us has done at least one of these things. We are all the better for it.

When Alaska Crossings closed, no one passed away. But there is so much LIFE in those 21 years that it almost feels like it. There will be many more endings and much greater sadness in life. The art is to not let that consume us; the point is to pour care into each other whether it hurts or not. Especially when it is inconvenient.

My name was among hundreds of other staff and countless Alaska youth who were not mentioned in the Jan. 20 Sentinel article about the closing of Crossings, though we poured our time, sweat and hearts into the program. But that's the way any kind of care goes — it’s a seed that can be hard to see.

I am grateful we got to add a drop to that ocean. And I’m sad it’s over, for no truly good reason that I’ve yet heard. Not just because it was where we woke up, but because there is nothing else like it. There are Crossings kids all over now; no one can change that.

Valerie Massie had been a guide for Alaska Crossings since 2016 and works for WCA as well.