A Quiet Moment

I’d like to share a quiet moment I recently had on the McCarthy Road. I was chasing rainbows, looking for them, knowing the light was right. Trees blocked my first glimpse, but if I could make it to the pond before it faded…

I caught the tail end for just a few seconds before the shower came back and blocked the sun.

Usually, this spot is all about the birds. It’s a favored Trumpeter Swan nesting place most years. But this year it’s the flowers.

I was hunting for orchids. They love that moist mossy patch of roadside.  I hoped I’d get lucky and spot one or two. What I found was a whole hill just covered with them. (I wished I’d brought  a better close-up lense.)

The Roundleaf Orchids were my favorites. I guess you might say the Roundleaf Orchid is a quiet flower. Like some people I know. Tiny belly flowers, easy to overlook, but if you really focus on them, a priceless treasure.

There were other flowers, too, over a dozen different varieties. Not big fields like a Mojave Desert superbloom, but scattered here and there through the grasses and the willows.

But I guess it wasn’t a quiet moment after all. A symphony of birdsong filled the air. It was more of a peaceful moment.

What was quiet was the road. I stopped for at least 20 minutes and not another car came by going either direction. On solstice weekend!

It reminded me of the old days, before the rest of the world discovered McCarthy, when it was never-never land.

It’s pretty quiet in McCarthy so far this season. There are a few visitors, mostly fellow Alaskans, but no crowds. I like that. It’s the tiny silver lining in the increasingly black cloud of our present-day reality.

But this quiet moment definitely feels like the calm before the storm. Travel restrictions have been lifted. The 4th of July will bring a huge influx of visitors.

Alaskan villages are haunted by the specter of the last epidemic, the 1918 flu epidemic. Alaska was one of the places hardest hit by that scourge. It completely wiped out entire villages. And it wasn’t the first wave that got ’em, it was the second.

The first wave hasn’t even hit here yet. It could happen again. We’re very far from medical care.

But this is also a town with an economy based entirely on tourism. What is the balance between economic survival and the lives of others in your community? That is the question that our village, along with the rest of the nation, is wrestling with now. Even in a community as remote and close-knit as ours, neighbor is pitted against neighbor in this struggle between economic prosperity and keeping people safe.

Personally, I feel that the lives of my friends and neighbors are priceless, much more priceless than that beautiful roundleaf orchid. They’re worth taking a few precautions for, making a few sacrifices.

If you love McCarthy, maybe for this year’s Fourth of July you might consider giving us a pass and recreating closer to home. If you must come out, do your best to keep us safe. Avoid the crowds. Keep socially distant. Please, please wear a mask. It’s not about politics, it’s about being considerate to others and not passing on a deadly disease that you’re not aware you’re carrying. It’s about keeping all of us here for each other for just a little while longer. Take a quiet moment and think about our community, which like that orchid, is so beautiful but so very fragile.

Thank you, Patti of Pilotfish, for this Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. I’m a day late and a dollar short due to connectivity issues, but better late than never.