My writing began to drift further away from anything worth substantiating. I was writing about somewhat trivial events. I was writing about nothing worth meaning. I yearn for more meaning in my life, something broader than my current experiences.
I got a call this afternoon from my Grandma. She had received a few messages from some people who had read the article. She rushed home to find her magazine in the mail, and called me immediately. I had no idea.
This was not some of my best work, I'll admit. I wrote it in an hour, but it has given me a little ambition. An Iowa magazine is not the New Yorker, but it's something. The fact that they gave me a check as well, gave me a little aha moment. Wait, you can get paid to write?
I mean that's the dream right? Apparently, that is my dream.
Let me add that I love my life. I have this great circle of friends, family, and now co-workers. Little unexpected surprises like this just make me so much more happy. Chicago=love. I love this city. I love this life.
So, the editor of the magazine changed the wording and the structure around. I wasn't surprised. What I find the most interesting, is that they wrote that I am a writer. I re-read the phrase and wished it to be true....
Please excuse the grammatical errors and such. I tend to write in "stream of consciousness"...
I fall in and out of love with the city often. My Grandmother tells me that I have become addicted to the “bright lights”, but little does she know I’m desiring the softness of a still Iowa night. Today, like many other days, I’m missing home.
I moved to Chicago a year ago, officially a year ago last week to be exact. Some days are harder than others. I miss the silly things about Iowa, like the over abundance of parking spots to the bigger things, like my entire family.
Moving to the city has given me the artistic freedom I have yearned for. Few other places would allow me exposure to such a broad range of cultures, while still living in the Midwest, and also provide me with an atmosphere to do what I love, to write. So, I buy my time here. I write about the new experiences that I have encountered in Chicago, while I secretly long for the simplicity of my former existence in Iowa.
Last week I took the train back to my roots, southwest Iowa, due to the sudden and unfortunate death of my much-loved Uncle. As the train pulled out of the station and traveled on it’s way into the countryside, I felt a sense of relief. The vast farmlands unfolded as the train pushed along and a smile took over my face, and my breath sighed, “home”. Home to be in the comfort of my family, and home to comfort them as well, as the devastation has set in and we felt a need to be near each other.
The second I stepped foot on the Iowa soil, the grass and trees seemed greener than anywhere else. I wanted to devour it. While some see the cornfields as endless and boring, I see it as startlingly beautiful. The rows of corn and soybeans create waves as you drive along. There is a motion and a stillness all in one; the alignment of each stalk in perfect symmetry. I love the way the colors change in the endless acres of farmland; the way you can judge the change in seasons and months based on height and color of a plant. The barrenness of the fields in the winter and the anticipation we as Iowans feel when the soybeans finally come bursting out from their early spring slumber. I long for that.
But it’s my family that I long for even more than the rolling Iowa hills, the snow covered fields in the winter, or the locusts that sing me to sleep on those hot August nights. It’s devastating times like this that I feel lucky to have this family. But everyone in Iowa feels like family, we feel such a strong connection.
The atmosphere is different here in the city. I miss the overpowering sense of community, the sense that you belong, that you are connected. I found that connection, as I watched the lines of people who came here to pay their respect to my Uncle, to add support to those of us who grieved for our loss. There were those that brought food, those that came to hug my Aunt and tell her that they will be there for her, our community, our extended family. We gained a feeling that we were not alone, a sense that when something happens it affects the whole. We share in each other’s pain, we feel something that surpasses sympathy and moves onto a tremendous amount of empathy. Our loss is your loss.
I came home a week later, swallowed up by the city. I felt like a number, and sat alone in my grief. Days went on, business as usual. I make a phone call to my Grandmother and hear about her best day this last summer. A new ice cream shop opened up, in her small town of Griswold, by a local Mennonite couple. So she sat and had a scoop and chatted with some of the locals. I sit here and write, looking across the busy and bustling street of people I will never know, never encounter again and think to myself, that does sound like the best day ever.
