January 1 was a day for visiting when we lived in Bethel. While people in Anchorage and the Lower 48 were hunkered down around the TV watching football and nursing hangovers those of us without excess money or cable TV would cycle through the houses of friends. On the pretext of wishing them Happy New Year we would appear uninvited. if not unexpected or unwelcome, at the inside door of their arctic entry way. Once inside there would be tea or coffee drunk and stories told of the last year while we waited for someone else to appear. When it was polite to do so we would move on to another house or return home to wait for folks to visit us there.

Now, in Juneau, I’m saved from an American New Year’s Day by the Japanese American Community with an invitation to their Oshogatsu. There we will find a potluck of Japanese food eaten with tea and conversation. There the whole village will gather, some who I only see on this first day of the year. Later Aki and I will explore some trail, me more able to appreciate the wild silence for having been filled at Oshogatsu,