
Anchorage, my home town, has never felt like a place I am anchored to. After growing up there it was strictly a place to visit family and friends between journeying the world. If anything, Anchorage felt disorienting, the way the place of your adolescence can stultify you with old patterns that have an uncomfortably strong grip. Important to experience, and vital to leave. Now, to my surprise and delight, Anchorage is just the place for me and Tchabo. I've travelled enough to know that I am the same everywhere, and I've changed enough to see my hometown with new eyes. I am excited to return.
Tchabo will start at Denali Montessori in August, and I will continue with See Stories leading film workshops with teenagers. Some have dug to find the hidden man behind my move, and I smile because if a man is inspiring this decision it's Tchabo. Kodiak has given him the wild natural childhood that for many places is a thing of the past. Anchorage will give him opportunities and broaden his horizons.

This return to Anchorage is punctuated with a See Stories trip to my extended family in Nebraska. I will do a film workshop in my Mom's hometown of Wausa, supporting students to look at stories of small farm culture. When I was 18, before leaving home, I went to Wausa to gather small town stories for my zine, The Crooked Rascal. I realize with this full circle that See Stories has always existed in my thirst to witness the way people look at the world, the way my family looks at the world and the the way I see it. That thirst exists whether I am in Greece, Uganda, New Mexico, or Anchorage. What has grown is my focus on supporting the next generation to make meaning of this web of stories, whether that be Tchabo or my students. The shared process of anchoring.