shadows fields herons
There are a few things that I truly adore about Ohio. The first—fields.
As I pack my stuff for the old country, I keep asking myself how a lass like me, a sort of small town girl will make it in a big, cosmopolitan European city. I never thought about myself as a Midwestern girl growing up, even though living in Bath, going to Revere, I really was a pretty classic example of it.
At 18, when I went to Indiana University, I really thought I was going to be so different and out of place among the farms and small lakes. The townies who cut the limestone for the lovely buildings in Bloomington weren’t going to be anything like me. Of course they were, and so was the place, and the quietness I felt when I lived in Indiana was probably the reason why I stayed there for six years and almost didn’t leave at all. Though there was always the pull, the curse of the Cuyahoga, as Dr. Ray Craig calls it.
So when I came back to Ohio, I started seeing it in a different way from how I remembered it as a kid and young adult. I could finally appreciate it, and why the people who live here in their adulthood (especially in the NE) can never really explain why it’s wonderful, but for their personal catalogue of images. And how no matter how far away you get from it, you always see things with Ohio eyes.
This morning I drove past the blue heron nests. Many were bringing sticks to their mates. Many were tending to their little blue heron babies. Another one of the core things I love about this area:
Now, as I’m getting together my writing books and pens and moleskins and sitting here writing Budapest from Ohio, maybe it will turn out that I’ll do exactly the opposite from my little flat in the budai várnegyed: write Ohio from Buda.
Oh, and the other thing I adore about Ohio? Better stock up on those flat-rate prepaid priority shipping boxes Mom and Dad!:
still life and a world apart
I’ve been back in Akron for a couple days now. Tonight I went to dinner in Kent with Maggie, and while we were there, two trains blew past the tracks outside. That whistle I remember so well from 3ams in my apartment six miles away.
The table rumbled softly, re-foaming the Christmas ale.
It’s the first time I’ve been back in about six months, and I haven’t missed home as much as I missed it tonight. Driving the long way through the valley, the snow-downed trees, the office at night, Alice peeking in from the hallway, me in contemplation and waiting for Maggie to say something that I could rush home, write down, and keep close– to get me through another six months.
And the students in scarves on the icy sidewalks.
And ice-petrified buckeyes and acorns rolling across the unattended parking lots.
And the writing center posters, half chewed by passing unzipped book bags, reading series fliers crooked on bulletin boards, Summer Writing Workshop: Prague. Someone still looking for a non-smoking roommate who doesn’t mind cats.
It’s one thing to romanticize silence, and certainly another to be among it again and realize how much it can be missed. And I’ve written a lot in the last few months about one thing or another in the world of the artist—still life—afterlife—and so on, and I really believe I don’t know anything about anything.
Except that Northeastern Ohio is a quiet place. It’s a place with quiet people—hard working people who don’t try to fill up empty spaces with noise.
And how in six months, I almost forgot that.
thanksgiving light and dark
I hope everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving–and of course, a stress free day of travel, if that is even possible anymore.
color and drought
I’ve been uploading pictures on flickr today and have been noticing that behind the really beautiful fall colors that are still swinging around on the trees there is the terribly sad dead grass. Anyway, the photograph with the single leaf shows you what it looks like. That is grass. It’s been that color for about a month now.
