I have known many husbands, children, reindeer. I have known many lovers in the long dark night and the nights when the sun never dies. The life I and my daughters, my sons, husbands and lovers endure is not easy. Food is scarce.
Treks are long.
I am old. It is custom when you are old and food is scarce, when old and you can no longer carry burdens from the ice to the land, when tired, having seen much of this world, and, perhaps, of the other, having spent fragile summers, and long winters watching the ice, watching the snow come down and down and down, veils deep to the earth's core, which, they say, is made of hot metal, it is custom, when living is hard, for the old, such as I, to stay on the ice, under the white sky, where you scarcely see clouds roll, because all is clouds, you scarcely see snow fall, for all is snow, you scarcely feel the ice freeze, for all is frozen. I have stayed on the ice, wearing my fur hood, boots, blankets, the fur turned inward for warmth. I sit far out on the ice, facing the eastern sun. Today I've been humming.