Originally published in The Nome Nugget, Summer 1994
A great culling process began the day we moved to Nome. The really great friends are being separated from the pretty good ones. And it’s all because we don’t live in Anchorage.
I don’t get it. I never heard anybody say, “We’d come visit you if you lived in Cleveland,” when we rented our farmhouse in western Ohio. Nobody said, “I’d love to come see you if you lived close to Houston Intercontinental,” when we leased an old place on the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t think it ever occurred to anybody then to limit relationships to people living by major metropolitan airports. So, when the first of our friends dared to say on the phone, “We’ll come visit you if you to move to Anchorage,” I chalked it up to impulse. But then my own flesh and blood wrote, “We’d come visit you if you lived in Anchorage.” I realized that this was more than a trend. We had become geographically undesirable.
It’s not that we don’t have the jet service here. It’s not that we don’t have neat stuff to do and see around the Seward Peninsula–world-class fishing, native culture, hot springs, the ivory, birding, gold, day-trip wildlife, and some pretty interesting geology. It’s not that these friends and relatives don’t have any money (judging by the nice cars and real houses–you know, the kind you buy not rent). But I guess it has something more to do with distance and time off work and taking ONE MORE PLANE. Or maybe it has more to do with Alaska.
When we planned our move here from the second-largest state in the U.S. several months ago, our neighbor said, “Oh, you’ll love Nome: the mountains, the trees, the fishing–it will be fantastic!” Okay, she got the fishing right. But she was lumping Nome together with Homer, Valdez, Juneau, Seward, and a few other places in Alaska into one big ball of lower-48 misconception. Another neighbor said, “Oh, Alaska! I’ve been watching ‘Northern Exposure’ and I just love that part of the country! You should watch that show so you’ll know what to expect.” The 11-year-old twins down the block asked if Nome was above or below the Equator (I think they meant the Arctic Circle, but maybe not). Another neighbor asked if we would have to wear our coats in the house all the time because of the cold. It impressed me that not that many people below the 55th parallel know a darned thing about us.
So, when my mother comes up to visit us from L.A., I’ll let her know she made the first cut, the first-round relative pick, the number-one position on the Christmas card list. She’s doesn’t look at the Gousha map book and base her decision to visit us on our proximity to a major airport. Grandma visits us because she loves us. When we go to visit her this winter, I’ll be remembering that loving attitude. Maybe I’ll even plan another Golden State visit for the spring. After all, she lives ten minutes from LAX.
Post a Comment