Untamed
Today is one of the rare days like this at Marble Point. Most days, I boast to friends 50 miles across the Ross Ice Shelf about the endless bluebird skies, the stillness, and the full sun casting its glow over the Antarctic wilderness. But not today. Today is different.
This weather makes me feel alive. It’s like being a greyhound in the starting gate, muscles coiled, mouth frothing, watching Rusty—the motorized rabbit—spin around the track. I want to chase it. I need to chase it. I need to feel it. Something about hurricane-force winds and the sting of cold air on my cheeks awakens something in me. It’s as though I’ve been waiting my whole life for this exact sensation.
The ferocity of the storm mirrors the wild spindles that twist and grow inside my chest. Finally, I’ve found something that matches me—a force I can look at with fear, with awe, with a kindred spirit of untamed energy. Untamed, unowned, and without fear.
Untamed, unowned, and without fear. That’s when I feel the most like Sarah Olson. I need to feel the earth push back against me, to challenge me. I need to struggle through the simplest of acts, to be humbled by the forces around me. I need to run, to let my legs flail wildly, to feel unshackled. Fearless. I crave the sensation of blood rushing through every vein, my body alive with motion. My eyes widen as they take in the vastness, and I feel the jolt of awe when I dare to dart close to risk, just to pull away at the last moment.
I need the adrenaline rushing behind my ears, that dizzying moment when time feels like it’s slipping away too fast to grasp. Slipping at just the right speed. I woudn’t change it.
This place—the raw land, the unyielding wind, the biting air—this is where I can find that feeling. This is where I learn to embrace it, to live it, without anyone saying a word. The land and sky are the best teachers I’ve ever known. Out here, there are no other souls for miles, and I wouldn’t want there to be. I feel like a creature of the earth, moving across the terrain, teetering on the edge of control and chaos.
My name is Sarah Marie Olson, and I feel the most like myself when I’m slapped in the face with snow, when the air is shoved down my throat and into my lungs—not by choice, but by the sheer force of the untamed winds that infiltrate every part of me. I need this ferocity to feel whole, to feel alive, to feel like Sarah Marie Olson.
