Kodiak - A generous town

Editors' note: We asked 14 of Alaska's best writers spread across the state — from Tenakee Springs to Dutch Harbor to Utqiagvik — to grapple with a question we all face in our lives: Why do I live where I live? This piece is part of that collection.

KODIAK — I was thinking about this question during jury duty, maybe not the best place to find reasons for living in any town. Instead, it made me wonder when meth and heroin got here, and whether I made the right choice moving back so our kids could grow up the way I remember — safe and simple and outside a lot.

Both my husband and I were raised in Kodiak, a commercial fishing town of 14,000 people.

Sitting next to me in the courthouse was the mother of a close friend, my husband's kindergarten teacher and the salmon fisherman who is our kids' favorite storyteller. Living here is like that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Name anyone, and eventually you'll find a connection among our shared histories and friendships.

People choose Kodiak for the mountains and spruce forests and beaches, the hiking and fishing. The island's beauty makes the high cost of housing and groceries and travel more tolerable.

We're here because both sets of grandparents live here. So when our kids aren't with us, they're with someone who loves them as fiercely as we do, and probably gives them more attention and jellybeans.

It's a generous town. People share seafood and venison, homegrown vegetables and homemade jam, and, most important, their time. Coaching kids' teams. Fundraising for good causes. Bringing dinner when a baby is born.

It'd be a lot to give up for a different life in a different place. Some moments you realize that the common we experience in our life on Kodiak is really uncommon in today's world.

Some days, the sky and ocean are so many shades of blue that everything stands out and also belongs — the fishing boats and gulls and wind turbines. I want to belong here too.

Sara Loewen is the author of "Gaining Daylight: Life on Two Islands." It won the 2014 WILLA Award for creative nonfiction. She and her family setnet for salmon in Uyak Bay. Winters, she works at Kodiak College and writes for 61° North Magazine.