skin and soft brown fur. Within three weeks, sucking rich milk from his mother, he’ll grow into that loose skin. And as he grows larger and stronger, his mother will become smaller and weaker. Nearby a male seal will be watching and waiting. When the mother is too weak to hold off his advances, he’ll separate the mother and pup so he can mate with the mother. From then on the pup is alone. The bond between mother and pup was strong, but short. The pack ice is forever changing. Nothing is guaranteed. Relationships are intense but brief. The impermanence of things in Antarctica.
The second photo is of an Adelie penguin colony on Magnetic Island, just off Davis Station. It’s taken from the top of the island, overlooking the colony. Beyond, the sea ice stretches into the distance, glinting with silver light and grounded bergs. The scene is luminescent. Somehow the photo reflects the intensity and transience of light in Antarctica. The light is a gift that comes magically; it illuminates your soul and then it is gone.
The third photo is of a Weddell seal hunched against the side of a breathing hole. She’s using her bulk to create a platform so her pup can climb out of the water. Just before I took the photo, I was drawn across the ice by frantic splashing and braying. The pup was scrabbling at the sides of the hole while his mother tried to thrust him up out of the water. Every time she tried to nudge him up onto the ice, the pup would flail wildly and slip back in, gurgling underwater. Then he’d pop up, braying again, eyes wide. For several minutes, I watched the mother working to get her pup out, until she finally came up with the strategy of using herself as a bridge. Every time I look at this slide, I’m reminded how hard it is to survive in Antarctica, even if you’ve evolved to live there. You can die from misadventure even if you belong. Humans do not belong in Antarctica. It’s important to remember this.
The fourth picture is of a dead Weddell seal pup lying in an ice hollow. The warmth of its dying body melted out its grave. The body was fresh—mostly intact—but the eyes were already gone, probably gouged out by the skuas and giant petrels that flapped reluctantly into the sky as I approached to take the photo. Death is always close in Antarctica, and once you die you become food for the scavengers. This slide reminds me that there is purpose in death as well as in life.
The fifth slide was taken among several immense icebergs just off Davis Station. I was exploring the area on skis and had paused to gaze up at the elegant curves of the bergs against the perfect sky. Within the cold blue shadows there was no wind, no movement. Intense quiet settled over the ice. Immersed within that stillness, I heard the sound of silence—a glorious deafening ache that reached to the bottom of my soul. This, for me, was Antarctica.
I turn off the slide projector and the room falls suddenly quiet. I feel very alone, despite Jess sleeping beside me on the rug. As always, I’m unsure whether Antarctic reminiscence is good or bad for me. It resurrects those tingling sensations of excitement and freedom. It makes my heart beat with the desire to go back there. Then those flooding feelings of guilt return. The pain of not being here when my father died. The fear of being absent should something similar happen to Mum. These are the burdens that have held me in Hobart for so long.
Looking back over these slides reminds me of the lessons Antarctica taught me. And yet I realise I still don’t know how to use the intrinsic wisdom of that place. Perhaps I learned nothing there about the living of life. And what do I know about death, with the shadow of my mother’s departure hanging over me? Since Antarctica, I’ve marked time. I haven’t had the courage to try again for fear of injuries. It’s difficult to trust when the deepest trust has been broken.
12
The phone call came about six months into my stay in Antarctica. The summer season was over, the last ship had departed, and the sea ice had refrozen and locked us in. I had just returned from a long ski around the icebergs near station, wandering out to Gardner Island, barren and quiet