A Place Where You Are

Everytime Peter & I get a chance to steal away are hearts take us to California. There we find our home away from home with Emma & her sweet family. They complete us. They complete our family. Without them we are left wanting for more time, more memories, more of the Clift family. It physically pains me to leave, to pull myself away from them. I entrust a piece of my heart to them everytime Alaska calls us north. North to that beautiful untamed majestic place. A place that I feel apart of. My past, my memories, my life. Alaska is where our story began. Sometimes I think that it would be nice to explore a new destination and one day call that new place "home". Somewhere where no one knows me. Knows my past, my story. To begin a wonderful new chapter together with my family. But there is something to be said about a place so familiar. Somewhere that you feel most like yourself. Alaska has always been that for me. It is where my children where all born. Here they have learned to fish the real Alaskan way ( with a dip net - no pole required ). Here where they have all learned to ride their bikes with snow still on the ground. Alaska, where it is a rare occasion to not have *SNOW* for Halloween! Where it is not uncommon to step out the door to a Moose on the front porch. Here the wildlife is all around us. There is something so comforting for me to be surrounded by snow capped mountains. Alaska, where when you open your stocked freezer to a years worth of moose meat & wild salmon ( and the occasional halibut fillet ). Where the Sun circles the sky for 3 months in the summer and disappears for 3 months in the winter. There is no place like it in all of the world! And I am proud to come from this beautiful Alaska. I don't know if my future will eventually take me away from this place I've known my whole life but I hope that where ever life takes me that I am with my sweet family . . . and with Emma's. My home & family may be in Alaska but I left a piece of my heart in California - After all "Home is where the heart is".