She sat in a wooden chair and looked out the small window of the front room of her house.
Have you ever sat in front of your window on a winter's night?
The cold air outside freezes the glass in the window pane until you can feel the chill, doesn't it?
Well, imagine if the window that separated the outside and the inside was in Point Hope, Alaska at the edge of the pack ice beside the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea.
That night was the coldest night of the year.
On those nights, when all life stays inside and under cover, the Iñupiats say God is slowing down the Earth so God can rest.
It was one of those nights when God's eyes were closed, when all eyes were closed, except her eyes, when no one was looking except her.
Her eyes were open.
The average temperature for the winter months in Point Hope is -11°F, but on this night it was -28°F, a rare kind of cold that comes along only once in a generation.
She felt that cold through the window and shivered all the way to her bones.
The night was cold but not dark.
A full moon sat in the sky.
The light was so bright she could see the shadow on the ground of her father's umiak, the traditional boat covered with skin of the Bowhead Whale.
The moon itself reflected off the calm water and looked like a lantern that might light the way for the whales that swam along that route.
Broken ice moved slowly with the current of the sea and creaked and moaned like her mother and father after a long day of hard work.
A Bowhead whale sang through the deep waters beside her as if to say, "You are not alone. I am here. I am here."
She sighed at the beauty and mystery of it all.
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