Can I Visit?

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"Can I 'bisit?'" The next generation of visitors.

“Can I ‘bisit?’” came a small voice on the other side of the door. 

Upon opening it, I found Karter, my young nephew, but I would have been no more surprised had I found some other completely random kid as the source of the voice.  He was there to visit his young cousin, Ellen, but she was out playing with some friends.  Karter came in and took off his rubber boots anyway.

Even before having children of our own, it was a pretty common occurrence to have kids just show up at our door asking to visit.  If we had energy and time, they were welcomed in, sat down, had snacks, some water, and we would talk, play a game, or watch a movie.  We had our regulars who would show up at the same time pretty much every Friday: three brothers who were in high school.

These kids weren’t family, but kind of adopted us.  As a result, so did their parents, and nobody thought any different of it.

Bush Alaska is as close to old, small town America as a person can get anymore.  Granted, we have been careful in the raising of our two daughters, and there are houses that have been off limits, families that it was not okay to visit.  However, there are so many houses still that our young daughter walks to with families that take her in as their own.  There is the family with a two-year-old that is her good friend and whose mom works at the school with me.  A new family has taken her in whose mom works at the district office and whose dad routinely subs at the school.  They have three kids who are all older than her, but they have adopted her as a little sister and if she is not going to their house to visit them, they come to our house in search of her.  And of course, there are the cousins.

Visiting is a tradition up here that comes from long winter nights when there was little else to do in a time before television, internet, and telephones.  People, adults and kids, would venture out to see their neighbors, walk into the house without knocking, and stand in the door.  If the occupant of the house was open to visitors, he or she would offer tea, water, something to eat.  If the time was right, a table would be set, and adults would sit and “talk story” while kids played quietly in the room or sat listening to the adults.  If the circumstances for visiting were not right, after a time of waiting without the offer of refreshment, the visitor would quietly leave unoffended with no words being said.  

We “talk story” here.  History and tradition are passed down, lessons taught, points made by telling of tales that are true, or mostly true, or should be true. 

“It was a long week,” I yell at my mother-in-law.

She is ninety and remembers dogsleds, skin boats, and igloos.

“My daddy was stuck on an ice flow once.  He was so hungry that he survived by eating the Oogruck skin sole of his mukluk…” she continues on with her story that I have heard many times before, but her point has been made, and I have gained new perspective.

Our elders still approach visiting in this way.  My mother-in-law, who couldn’t hear a knock anyway, simply expects people to walk in the house.  She is sad that more people don’t.

“People just don’t visit like they used to,” she says to me.  “I wish more people would come to see me.”

And she is right.  Even here, we don’t visit like we used to.  Texting, messaging, tweeting, have all taken their toll on a good old-fashioned sit down over coffee or tea, but I am happy to say that many friends still just drop by whether we are their destination or just a stop on the way.

We have to be purposeful about it now.  If we don’t set aside time to go and see our neighbors, we won’t.  There is work, raising a young child, activities, chores, hobbies, excuses (haven’t these always existed?).  Myra and I, two very goal-oriented people, have set visiting as one of our goals.  You may hear a knock and our voice on the other side of the door.  And our challenge to our friends… go visit each other, build real relationships, speak to real people using real spoken words.  Come visit, knock… or don’t… just come and see us, there is no need to call ahead, no need to have an agenda, ours is an old Eskimo home, and more than likely, we’ll put a pot of tea on, pull out some pilot bread and talk story.