I told my friends I was applying to a job that would take me to Alaska for a year. Days later, a high school friend texted me, “I was hanging out with someone from college, he knows someone who did that radio program. Here’s his info.”
I quit my job in New York City to come here. I was a receptionist at a recording studio and told my boss I was moving to Nome. “Oh yea, I know a guy up there.”
I landed in Nome, welcomed at the airport by a group of KNOM staff and volunteers. Trading the basic info with new faces. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? How was your trip?
A woman standing near us turned around, “My husband is from Rochester!” Blown away, I asked, “What town?” “Webster,” she replied. “That’s my hometown! Do you know the high school? Thomas or Schroeder?” 5 minutes into being here, I was already talking past high school rivalries.
I was hungry on my first day in the volunteer house. Rummaging through the kitchen, I stumbled upon a box of Wegmans brand food: a popular grocery store with a cult-like following that I grew up with. Turns out one of the past volunteers (shout out to Tara) is from Buffalo, New York, a city about an hour away from mine, Rochester.
I took my first trip out of Nome to Unalakleet in August. A wonderful, sunny day (I’ve been spoiled with weather here thus far), I spent the day walking down a road by the water. I passed a group of people and instantly recognized the sweatshirt: House of Guitars. In a town of 700 people, I had just walked by someone wearing a sweatshirt from a record store in my hometown, 3,000 miles away.
Does any of this mean anything? Probably not. But when seeking familiarity in a strange place, anything is comforting. And slightly bizarre.
