Betsy Bauman

Journal entries & film from my summer in Seward, Alaska, in Kenai Fjords National Park 2024

May

May 5th

I can feel it coming back 

I feel myself breathing again 

I look like myself and can feel my feet hitting the ground

I plan my days out: eat, coffee, ocean 

It’s so so quiet and I can hear my thoughts again 

I feel my body, my tears again, and it’s me

It’s all me

Seward, Alaska is a mile and a half long. It starts from the harbor, where the Sea Otters and Harbor Seals live, and the house boats overlooking the entrance to the fjord. The town’s end is proclaimed with a small cove to the left of the never ending road, and to the right a waterfall from the season’s snowmelt. There’s a white Mountain Goat that lives in the aftermath of a landslide from a few years back. 

The first day I was here, I met a Killer Whale researcher. Sat in the steeple of the coffee shop thriving in an old church, we spent the morning leaning into his computer observing his research. He showed me pictures of some pod member’s fins, and how he knew them individually and their songs. Everyone is eager to talk here, they love meeting new people and making connections. I viewed this time in Alaska as a fresh start. A cold plunge, to cleanse me of what I’m stained with. Over the course of this last year, I have lost everything. 

I feel peace coming into my body, slowly, with everything I do and see. I walked alongside the Bay to watch the white Mountain Goat and Bald Eagles on the cliffs. I want to be gentle again. With myself, my body, my heart and mind. With people who haven’t hurt me yet. I want to be kind and gentle and soft. I deserve it. I want to write again, maybe something good. I want to be outside, to feel like myself. I want to take pictures. Good pictures to go along with my writing. I have Bunny and my books next to me to remind me I’m not alone, they’re so good at it. I took a hot shower and turned on the heater. My hair is soft and wet against my back. 10:22pm. Outside I hear birds, it’s still blue. 

I feel my age here, in a good way. I live on the edge of the coastal rainforest, a rugged and rough land full of bears and men. Alaska forces a genuinity out of you, with no choice but to be raw and real. I have a minimalist’s necessities of living. I love solitude. People often show discomfort or pity when I say I came here alone, saying it’s hard being away from family and friends. What steers them to never leave home, drives me away. I feel safe being alone. I am reliable and take care of myself. I wake up with peace knowing I don’t have to defend my existence, to fight for what I want and be ashamed of the people that say they love me and call me family. 

I am myself when I write, when I drink coffee, when I’m by the ocean.  There is no one else to mirror or reflect; only the ocean and what lives under the trees to keep me company. Only then I have just my thoughts. I can stop running from what has been hurting me for so long. I hate my family. I hate men, specific men, and specific women. I hate most people. I hate myself, too. I think that’s where most of my hate comes from. Except the men. 

Over the course of this last year, I have lost everything. 

June 

Start, June. 

June 1st

Happy pride  

I hate my mom. I’ve been told that hate for mothers will turn into peace sometime down the road, in a few years. When will mine? 

I miss Lucy, I know he’s safe and happy. Am I abandoning my cat? Does this make me a bad person?

June 2nd 

Aleick Bay and Glacier- KFT eight hour boat tour. 

With Sophia today, we’ve hung out everyday since she’s arrived in Seward. We’re very different- but it feels good. She’s from Long Island.

This past week has been painful. I miss my family. I miss having sisters- I miss my sister. I regret cutting them off sometimes. But everytime I see them, I leave hurt. Two years ago I came out to my family, some willingly, some by force. I cut off my sister and brother in law. It’s painful hearing people talk about their nephews. It makes me angry but in a soft way. I wonder who I would be if I didn’t have so much anger in me. Would I be nicer? A better person. 

June 8th 

Something I’ve always known about myself is that I only need one or two friends. Few things have stayed the same since my childhood. My lack of needing people is one of them. 

(All we do is fight. We’re in love.)

Alaska is bringing me peace. I feel clearer. Words that have hurt me before now give me hope; redemption, born again, washed clean. I feel myself physically healing. 

One thing I don’t know what to do about is the pity I have for myself. 

I had a dream about my family dying. I’ll come back in a year or two, people will be older and there will be kids I don’t know who will have younger siblings. 

It will hurt, but it’s for the right reasons 

My dreams consist of my family dying, and phone calls that you call me crying

begging to accept each others apology

I blame the church 

End, June. 

July 11th

I don’t know my sister’s cowlicks.  

I used to braid all my sisters’ hair. I knew the textures and length, what styles they liked and hated. I’ve done everything I can do and it’s still not enough. It never will be (I blame the church). I feel the pain flowing through my veins, heavy in my chest and weighing on my shoulders. I am not supported, and I don’t know if I’m loved. If I have experienced being loved, it’s unknown to me. Maybe in their sick, twisted ways.

I’m reading a book about our bodies holding trauma. Can she still feel the weight of younger me, the chest pains of anxiety and shame?

I know love briefly: From my friends giving me a card for getting accepted into school- the only one I’ll get. 

I know love briefly: It’s my friends picking up the pieces others have left behind, healing things they have not caused, and do not fully understand. 

I don’t know my sister’s cowlick

If I do know love, it’s been brief: My friend’s mothers let me stay for weeks at a time, knowing I didn’t want to go home, without probing the why out of me. 

I want to feel the love that I give to others. I want my passion, letters and words. I’ll get myself to where I want to be, eventually. Standing alone, I’ll take myself to where I need to be. 

I believe in love because I feel it in my bones, weighing me down

Like stones tied to my ankles 

I believe in love because I used to know my sister’s cowlicks. 

η αγάπη είναι υπομονετική

η αγάπη είναι ευγενική

July 30th

It’s July, my last week in Alaska. I leave for Greece on Saturday. I start school on August 20th, I turn 24 on the 6th. I’m single. I’m no contact with my family. I have no plans other than my one-way ticket. I have one bikini, my passport, and a book. I’m slowly becoming a new version of myself, I’m living for myself and no one else. I’m very sad, but for once the joy outweighs the sadness. I can picture my future, and I have hopes and dreams. I’m proud of myself. 

July 31st

Across the Resurrection Bay, the mountains are covered in their alpine glow.

(with my boots wet in the mudroom)

I remember the gentle moments. When I was in your arms in the afternoons, with that morning’s iced coffee melting away on the table and the sun creating shadows from your fingers, tracing my legs back and forth.

I remember waking up at 3am and reaching over for you, always pulling you closer and whispering to each other how much love we have, or if we had nightmares. 

I can handle this. I can be understanding if I try hard enough. I can heal and journal and read and travel. I can make friends and write love letters to them, and experience true unrequited platonic love. 

But I will never, not in a million years, understand why everyone who has said they have loved me, has hurt me beyond repair. I give so much of myself, I strive so fucking hard and love with everything I am. It may be a fault of mine (I blame the church). I feel pathetic. They have treated me the worst of anyone. I have been torn down, my fingers broken and my body bruised. My body has been used for their pleasure and contentment. The words and the fights have destroyed me beyond repair. Everyone, every, single, damn, time, has told me directly that they have no idea why they have treated me this way. I have gotten the worst of everything. So here I am months later rebuilding something I did not break. I have a problem of being told what they believe my worth is, and still staying. It’s my fault (I blame the church).

Don’t misunderstand my words here- I have not an ounce of pity for myself inside my bones. Especially not any words that would ever touch your eyes and ears. My tone is factual, it is content and it is serious. I write this with wonder. 

This is what I do not understand. I could understand if it’s who they are and if they do it to everyone, but why me? What do I do differently than everyone else? Am I really that fucking weak that as soon as someone gets a hold of me they test the waters, and see that I can’t ever and will never stand up for myself, so they unleash that part of themselves? The part that maybe they have been waiting to unleash for years. I’m a safe place, even for those that enter the church with intent to steal and destroy. I will always be a safe place, it’s my fault. Was there anything I could do differently? Was it supposed to happen, was it supposed to teach me a lesson? I have no idea. That is the only thing I could never understand. 

I don’t know my sister’s cowlicks

I blame the church