On July 2nd, driving toward Eastern Kansas, we crossed into what was unmistakably the Midwest, and something inside me came undone.
It wasn't that I was exactly crying from the moment that everything started to look like Missouri, but you know that feeling you get when you're about to cry— that pressure in your eyes, the knot in your larynx— but you don't want to because there's really nothing to cry about? Yeah, I felt that. It was beautiful. Everything was so freakin' beautiful.
I wrote in my journal:
Now that we're back in Missouri (or close, I guess), and the weather and scenery are objectively worse, I realize how very much I still love the Midwest. Today I saw cottonwoods glistening through a haze of humidity, and I nearly cried for the joy of being home. This is my land, my people, my culture. No matter how much I travel, Missouri is always home.
For something to be familiar is for it to feel right. Our minds are constantly comparing, analyzing, trying to determine what's normal. For the past four and a half months, my brain has been trying very hard, putting names to things, scraping grooves for my mind to follow: Douglas fir, hooded merganser, wild rhododendron, chilly air when the sun goes down. I had been adjusting, but now, my brain springs back into the familiar with a sharp click, and I feel so much joy I want to cry.
Trees grow on the hills along Interstate 70— pin oak, silver maple, black walnut, box elder, wild mulberry, smooth sumac, black locust, sycamore, cottonwood. White limestone peeks out, Virginia creeper climbs the trees, honeysuckle bushes tangle up the underbrush. It's dense and weedy and buggy and humid and alive, so alive. It's home. I am home. I had no idea how much I missed home.
This is the danger of naming things, I think. You get attached. You get grounded. You love and you name and you put down roots…
I didn't appreciate St. Louis until I started traveling. It took a while. I returned from Bellingham, home of orca whales and purple starfish, and wondered why anyone stuck around the maple-and-cornfield flatland. But the more I traveled— the more cities I saw, the more worldviews I encountered, the more unfamiliar each trip became, the more I imperceptibly began to value St. Louis, and the Midwest, for what it was. A place to raise a family. An abundant crop land. A huge river and a free zoo. Summer nights at the Muny or Shakespeare in the Park. Safety. Rain. Familiarity. Love.
To travel is to appreciate both journey and final destination of home. To travel is to love. To travel is to experience things anew, both on the road and at home. To travel is to see clearly, whether for rejection or embracing. To travel is to see, and to love, and to come home again.
We stopped in Kansas City to drop Jessie off at his house; his wife Larissa was waiting, and had set out a bowl of fruit and made muffins. They would be following us in a separate car to the show tonight in Columbia, Missouri. Seeing them reunited gave me a sharp pang, and I desperately missed Zach. But I gently reminded myself that I should focus on the moment, that I should enjoy the time we had here in this unique situation. I should savor this final show that we'd all be playing together tonight.
I stood in Jessie's yard, drenched in sweat, and looked up at the silver maple leaves waving in the breeze. My heart swelled with emotion, and I blinked rapidly to clear the tears.
I glanced down to see Tyler, looking like he was about to drop dead of heat exhaustion. We were beings from alternate universes, converging on this spot that brought joy to me and death to him.
Sometimes I forget what a sacrifice Zach made to move to the Midwest.
In a much more choked voice than I intended, I blurted out, "I just really like the Midwest, okay!"
Tyler laughed and nodded. "I know," he said. "I know."
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