On my third day in Nome, I met a woman in town who told me:
“Keep your heart open to this place and it will open for you.”
In those days, (almost four months ago, but it seems like years) this town was still a strange expanse of dirt roads and fishing jargon, incomprehensible and overwhelming. I was comforted by the fact that I could make sense of this place if I lived with an open mind and heart, the way I always had.
But it turns out you are not allowed to merely “live life as you always have” here. The ice makes you walk slower, the unpredictable weather makes you prepare more, and the people—maybe the greatest force of all—make you live more openly than you ever have.
Take, for example, my Saturdays. I wake up at 7a.m. to record the weather and complete some routine tasks before the Saturday Request Show, an opportunity for people all over Western Alaska to call in and request whatever they want to hear. Which, it turns out, is anything from Bette Midler to Metallica and a lot of Michael Jackson.
Within just a couple weeks, listeners from hundreds of miles away began to open up about more than just their song requests. They told me about their families, their struggles with depression, their sicknesses, their long distance romances, their weekly victories or trips they were planning. I look forward to these conversations each week, so honest and vulnerable. It’s an openness and candidness I never expected, and a reminder of the ways in which our station allows people to find companionship over great distances.
I have seen openness elsewhere, too: in Story49 interviews that leave all in tears, Thanksgiving dinners with people who already feel like family, community fundraisers and events that pack rooms. I have been continually humbled by what people are willing to share here, and I’m encouraged each day to share more of myself.
