Yesterday was my six-month anniversary of moving to Nome. Like when you move anywhere new, there comes a time when what was novel becomes comfortable, when a place becomes home. Nome may not be the home I came from, but it’s one of my homes now.
This time last year, beginning to look at the KNOM application, life in the (sub-)Arctic was still a fantasy, a hopeful fiction I would gush over to anyone who dared ask what my post-graduation plans were. Wouldn’t it be cool to move to Alaska? This, of course, before I even thought seriously about everyday life in Nome—being a reporter, eating reindeer sausage for lunch, having a long and spontaneous phone conversation with someone I’ve never met, and singing along to “Nome for the Holidays” during the Christmas extravaganza. I think I loved it here before the plane even landed.
The stories we tell before we’ve had the experience are never really representative, but they’re always fun to imagine. I was talking with a couple of friends the other day about paintings we see of places around the world we’ve never been to, and when you finally get there, when you finally see and understand…it’s incredible the depth and tangible reality of the world. But then what you used to be able to explain in a sentence or two—it takes hours. Postcards can’t do it justice, and sometimes neither can long evenings on the phone.
For me, the news has become both harder and easier to report the longer I’ve lived here. Whoever “they” are, I think they say that true knowledge is awareness of all you do not know. Which made it pretty easy for me in the beginning. It was simple: I didn’t know anything. In fact, I didn’t even know what questions to ask. Quickly, that turned into asking too many questions (most of which were more for me than for my news stories). And gradually, I’ve been teaching myself to ask the right questions—just a few, just one step and one story at a time.
I covered a meeting of the museum commission this week and it was so interesting to hear Nome-ites explain innumerable stories of the past and present, some that were new to me but also many that I’ve come to learn in the past six months. I remember what it was like to hear those stories the first time when everything was new, but now, understanding more of the complexity, I can’t imagine a museum having enough space to house even one of those stories. There are so many perspectives, layers.
The news has gotten easier to report in some ways, the longer we’re immersed in these layers. But I’ve also realized that it’s impossible to tell just one story. To parse out all the details, the history, the people. When you have five minutes to explain something you’ve spent sometimes weeks becoming intimately acquainted with, and all you can do is try to get to the meat, the heart, as quickly and concisely as possible. It couldn’t have happened overnight, but at some point I realized that I’m working in a place I now consider a home. The things that matter to me as a reporter would matter to me anyway as a member of this community. It makes me want to learn about everything, so I can carefully chose those few important questions to ask and hope I have the opportunity to do so.
I’ve learned a lot the past six months—more and different things than I could have predicted when I submitted my application (gutting fish, city finances, four-wheel drive, renewable energy—you name it). It’s been quite an experience to work here, and a pleasure to live here, and I’m already imagining what’s to come in the next half a year. But I guarantee the reality will be far more interesting than anything I could dream up.
