Flying back from Chicago, that incredibly long flight, we were packed in like sardines. I had many sleepless nights up late with friends and up early with babies. Everyone was returning back to San Francisco that Sunday. And I think the entire plane was burned out from the rush of Christmas. I had a crying baby next to me and a crying toddler in front of me and no where to go. In these circumstances, I find it really hard to read a book or do anything productive and am grateful when I am on a plane with a TV screen in front of me so I can numb the unpleasantness of flying (something that used to be pleasurable is now something I loathe and dread).

I see on the direct TV a reality show on Alaska. And low and behold it is following the Kilcher family on their homestead near Homer, Alaska right near where I spent time. I had met some Kilcher's and even stayed at a home on their land with a friend whose bff was renting from them. 

If you have ever read Malcolm Gladwell's book, I could tell you, I am a connector. I am constantly having not 6 degrees of separation but like 2 degrees of separation experiences. I am starting to log all these connections in a "coincidences" file because I long for evidence that this world is small and I will always be connected to all parts of it and that I was always have a chance to reunite with people, places and experiences.

So, I laugh that I fly home from Chicago watching these people that I have met and on this land that I have lived and foraged. It all seems so far away, so different, something you'd only see on TV- but I was there. 

I am always pondering love and relationships, probably being the child of divorced parents, I constantly think about what keeps people together and having lived on many homestead like places in my life, I have always thought that marriages used to stay in tact when the family had a property to run. It was more than love and friendship- you needed the family unit to keep the farm going. It is not a one man job. 

What I found so lovely about this show, The Last Frontier, is that it followed these homestead couples around as they managed to survive on their land in an Alaskan winter from hunting to foraging to building and milking cows, these couples needed each other. They worked together and I found their relationship dynamic very sweet. Modern life is just so incredibly different. We put so many wild expectations on our partner and we don't really need a partner at all. I'd say survival is the strongest glue.  Love is why we get into it but that passion quickly fades, we need to need each other. In modern life, what is there to keep us from walking away? We can make our own money, buy our own food, live in our own place. Right now in time, more people are living alone than ever before. 

Norma and I spent a season on the farm in France without her husband while he was working in the US. I was tasked with all the manly tasks and called "l'homme de la maison" by the French. We needed each other to run the Chateau and women can definitely survive but when Rini came back, my sexism was affirmed- some things, a man can just do easier. Restocking the fire wood that would take me forever, he swiftly did in minutes. I have watched, for years, the delicate balance of man and woman and property with Norma and Rini and have come to the conclusion that the land was the glue and the key to this dynamic duo.

But this reality show really stuck out because most reality shows all you see is couples bickering and griping but here they were actually solving problems and appreciating one another. I did, however, only watch one episode. I'd be curious to see how it all turns out and if I am just romantizing a simple life, living of the land.  

* I wrote this entriely off my iPhone so please forgive grammatical errors (as I am the queen of that!)