"A Problem Page For All!"

I love the attitude of Midwesterners. As my friend Eira, who lives in Ohio, once said, "Midwest people rule the school. We're one of the most down-to-earth, kindest (but not really overly saccharine sweet) groups of people you'll ever have the pleasure to know." I agree with that. We have an attitude, but it's a friendly, open kind of attitude. No offence to those who live on the coasts, but coastal people often run the risk of forgetting that there's lots of American between NYC and LA. We've been called "flyover country" on more than one occasion. Ahem. We're here! We exist! But because we're often ignored (have you noticed that about 90% of films, TV shows, etc. are based in NYC or California? Sometimes you get Chicago, but not often) we've become quietly content within ourselves. We don't show off. We know where our hearts are.

I know, I know, I'm generalizing. But I do love the people and the attitude of Midwesterners. I love the flat, flat, open spaces coupled with rolling hills and forests stretching as far as the eye can see. I love the plains (you have got to see prarie before you die, all of you -- it opens your heart to the world), the sky arching above the bountiful earth, the butterflies, the lakes. I love roads that curve lazily through thin woods and golden fields. I love little stores selling apple cider for $2.50 a gallon or carrots for $.50 a bunch. I love cottages grouped along the shallow shores of a little lake that pops up at you out of nowhere. I love the historic downtowns. One day I want to take a road trip specifically to visit all the county courthouses in Indiana. Huntington is blessed with a beautiful, century-old courthouse, and I've seen countless others as we drive by from here to there, but I've never been inside most of them. We used to visit the state capital in Iowa -- that was a beautiful building, domed and regal.

I love how I'm in the middle of the country. From this center point, my family has traveled to every corner of the continental USA. Because we live in the middle of it, it never seems impossible to reach any part of it. (If we lived in, say, Maine, which my parents actually thought about for a while, I don't think we ever would have ventured out very far, and certainly not twice by car to the west coast -- and yet those two trips are ones I'll always savor.)

I'm rambling. Does that answer your question? Yes, for a while I felt trapped in a small city, trapped in the fields and under the sky, trapped in the middle of it all. Now that I've traveled more and done some thinking and had the chances to move somewhere else -- and chosen to stay -- I understand my feelings, past and present, and understand why I love this place. I think I'll always want to live in the Midwest (though a summer cottage in Maine would be lovely...). I've always lived here. To use a terribly sappy phrase, this is where my heart is.