I was in the backyard of my childhood home with my older brother. We stood by the strip of dirt which we had all made into a garden this year, growing tomatoes and other vegetables. He knelt down on the hot soil, or maybe I did, I don’t know. We might have just been standing out there talking. I think I just got back from work at the pioneer village, where I must have spent long hours contemplating history, my own and the world's fears and dreams. I was to go back to college in a couple of weeks.
“Sometimes I just want to get away from it all here. All the family drama, it’s just...” I said something along those lines.
It was a surprising change of attitude. Just a year previously, I felt a sadness at the prospect of leaving the prairie for my sophomore year of college in Georgia. I wouldn’t see the leaves turn and the winter whisper in the way I'd always known. I dropped out of college that year and stayed home. It was in unfavorable circumstances, but I remember welcoming the comfort and peace which the atmosphere around me brought when I could predict and breath with it’s movements.
And yet, a mere year later, I found the human part of my home was driving me out.
And so I left…
And I returned again later...
And then, I left again.
And here I am. Still away.
And even today, I feel drawn back to my home soil.
Even as I recognize that the people and places have changed or gone elsewhere, even as I know that the picturesque trees and riverways don’t hold up to the malice which often escapes humanity’s heart.
I crave the air, and the trees, and the promises they made to me.
I crave the snow, and how it silences the land and summons contemplation in the early morning light. The wind, which sings through the prairie and rests in the quiet padded carpet of the church lobby. The sun, which doesn’t broil like it does a few states down. The air, which wicks moisture off of Lake Michigan and brings it to the trees and land. I crave biking along the river on a dewy morning, joining the egrets at my simple job, enriched by lovely people and their aspirations.
If I were to return, would I find the fulfillment I seek in these memories? Are they enough to sustain life? I might become victim to loneliness, human’s vice, or the shallow, harsh underbelly of the community which I seek.
Or, now that I have more bearings on life, would I be able to stay on top of all that and become the hearth which I seek to build?
edited July 2023