some musings i wrote upon leaving Ohio

An Ode to Ohio

Though I was born in the Midwest, I grew up in the West.  Mountains were the dominating backdrop or star in most of my life experiences.  I, too, at one time mocked the flatness.  Until, just as the mountains are, the flatness became a part of me.

More than once I have heard, "why would anyone want to live here?  There are no mountains."  To them I say, but have you ever experienced Ohio in the fall?  A gentle, constant breeze sets golden leaves dancing as they glisten in the sunlight.  A sea of orange, red, and yellow lines the streets and blankets the forests for weeks before winter sets in.

I'll be the first to admit that winter in the Midwest can feel endless and dark and downright depressing.  But just when you think you can take it no more, Spring trickles in on the backs of the last melting snowflakes with its pinks and whites and yellows and purples.  A rainbow of blossoms and blooms accompany the sweet scent of fuchsia and peonies.  The crocus and daffodils shoot upright as the ground begins to thaw and sends the gray packing.  As a Westerner who observed that tug of war between Winter and Summer for a few months each year, I never truly appreciated Spring until I lived in Ohio.

But when I remember Ohio, I think it will be summer nights of rain and fireflies.  Being startled from sleep by thunder so booming it shakes the house.  It is the bright green mornings with the cardinals and chickadees chattering over dibs on the bird feed (that the squirrels inevitably ransack).  Robins pecking for bugs on the ground while hawks soar overhead.  It is blue jays hopping from branch to branch while squirrels chase each other around tree trunks.  It is the ferocious roar of cicadas and moisture hanging heavy in the air.  It is skunks and rabbits and red winged blackbirds.  It is flatness.  And it is also rows of corn shooting up like high rises.  It is age old trees of every variety, and hostas, and lush green grass calling you to run barefoot and sit in its tresses.

And all of this says nothing of the genuine and kind people who inhabit its flatness.  Who never drive in a hurry.  Who view life as a thing to experience and absorb, not a race or a thing to be adorned with stuff that will turn to dross at the end of days.  So, to those naysayers who suggest that anyone who lives here might be happier living somewhere else, I say, there is a reason it's called the Heartland.  It is magical.  As magical as any place I've lived or visited.  And once you've been in it, it is in you.