Alaska News

After week in Mexico, coming home has new meaning

HAINES -- My daughters said I had to tan before I went to Mexico. They said if I played at the beach all day and didn't, that I'd burn and then shed my skin like a lizard. Instead of wearing a sleeveless dress at dinner, I'd be plastered with Noxzema and wrapped in gauze like a mummy. Then they said that I would look even worse in a bathing suit than I thought I was going to.

That convinced me. It has been four years since I was in a warm place walking around in public in the moral equivalent of my underwear. (Well, summer underwear.)

It was as cold as it gets in Haines (minus 7, snowing, with a northerly gale) When we made our way to the beauty parlor on a dark January afternoon.

When we arrived, Lori was at the front desk knitting while her partner shampooed the only other customer. She looked at the pale arms I pulled up my many sleeves to expose and said six minutes in the tanner would be plenty of time for me, and that I should come back every other day for a week. Each session cost $18. No, that is not because of the high price of electricity in rural Alaska, it is because I wasn't alone.

I had to tan because I was going to Mexico, but my three daughters had to tan because they were not. Go figure. With only one tanning bed, we took turns.

The tanning booth is like a big wooden bathroom stall, and sits in the middle of one half of the shop, next to the desk of a local airline. It is a multipurpose sort of place, like a lot places in Haines. (There used to be another tanning bed in town, that one was is in the back of an auto parts store.) To lock the bi-fold doors you drop a rough-cut board across two brackets. I stripped, started the timer, the lights powered on with a whoosh, and I hopped into the bed, pulling the lid down on top of me trying not to compare it to a coffin, or think about what would happen if there was an earthquake and all the light tubes shattered. I closed my eyes tight.

That's when I realized that I had forgotten the goggles, so I jumped up, bumped around the bright booth and quickly (the clock was ticking) fished out a pair from the jar full of disinfectant, slapped them on my face and stumbled back onto the lighted bench. My daughters had tried to help me, but the bar was in the door and I couldn't find it with my eyes shut. I assured them I was fine and put the goggles on and opened my eyes, and then shrieked because of the sting of the liquid that was still in them from that jar, but I couldn't remove them, because then I'd really damage my vision with the combo of chemicals and UV rays.

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That's when I thought that maybe I should forget about Mexico. When the light finally switched off I dressed in a hurry.

On the way out, Lori observed that tanning was so relaxing.

The red left my eyes thanks to soothing drops and the therapeutic sights of Mexico -- the palms, pink bougainvillea and blue-green sea. For a week (I wish it were longer, but we are still parents and still have work to do) we did nothing but swim and eat in the company of good old and new friends.

All the while we were treated like lords and ladies of the villa (and it really was a villa). Our friends from back east traded it for a week in their vacation home, and it came with a staff who would not allow us to clear a plate or get our own Coronas from the fridge. Having a cook is really nice. (Having fresh tomatoes is also.) Having someone pouring your orange juice in the morning felt a little funny, but I have to say, I could get used to both the fresh squeezed juice and the service.

We got home from Mexico (and back to a servant-free household and a hungry wood stove) the night before the inauguration. I was watching it on TV and Aretha Franklin was singing when my daughter called to confirm that I was crying. "You are going to cry through the whole thing," she said. Which was true.

Maybe it was the time change, or maybe it was coming home to the cold rain and months of winter, or maybe it was because I was suddenly so glad that in America at least the ideal of equality and freedom really does ring out. No doubt it was all of those things, but there was more. I was ashamed that I had cheerfully let a maid make my bed for a whole week, and even bragged to my daughters about it, while the president's daughters, their mother says, will not be allowed to have the White House staff make theirs.

Lucky them.

Lucky us.

Heather Lende lives and writes in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com

HEATHER LENDE

AROUND ALASKA

Heather Lende

Heather Lende is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News From Small-Town Alaska." To contact Heather or read her new blog, The News From Small-Town Alaska, visit www.heatherlende.com.

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