elsewhere things
Yesterday I crossed the one year mark for living in Kansas. It was in the back of my mind all week, twisting up with a feeling of homesickness and glazed in a healthy coat of denial. I've now passed one year of living in this itsy bitsy but sunny apartment, one year of stumbling through uncertain steps which have landed me where I am now, three jobs and many frustrations later.
I've been thinking about Virginia, and how green and hot it is... how I feel most comfortable in a place that's jungly and military and urban, sliced in with water and marshes and farmland and ocean. Cotton and peanuts and corn and soybeans... I miss these things alongside the understandable, soothingly familiar highways and streets and shipyards and rivers and beaches. I don't know if it's mine anymore, and I miss it. Pine and pecan and crape myrtle smothered in cudzu listening to mourning doves.
I'm sorry Kansas - you are not mine either. I don't really like you, and I'm pretty bored with what you have to offer. Fields and small towns and bars and lakes and overzealous politics. Rules I don't really get. People I don't really get. A year later and I'm still paddling around in unfamiliar waters. I'm glad you have wheat fields, and I'm sure you're really great, but give me a good I know over a great I don't understand!
Don't get me wrong, I have friends here and I like them. I just can't keep pretending like I'm home, because I'm not. A year later, and this is still the best I can do. (?)
I've been thinking about Virginia, and how green and hot it is... how I feel most comfortable in a place that's jungly and military and urban, sliced in with water and marshes and farmland and ocean. Cotton and peanuts and corn and soybeans... I miss these things alongside the understandable, soothingly familiar highways and streets and shipyards and rivers and beaches. I don't know if it's mine anymore, and I miss it. Pine and pecan and crape myrtle smothered in cudzu listening to mourning doves.
I'm sorry Kansas - you are not mine either. I don't really like you, and I'm pretty bored with what you have to offer. Fields and small towns and bars and lakes and overzealous politics. Rules I don't really get. People I don't really get. A year later and I'm still paddling around in unfamiliar waters. I'm glad you have wheat fields, and I'm sure you're really great, but give me a good I know over a great I don't understand!
Don't get me wrong, I have friends here and I like them. I just can't keep pretending like I'm home, because I'm not. A year later, and this is still the best I can do. (?)
posted by sarah at 3:22 PM
1 Comments:
Okay, Sarah,
here I am. Yep, it's true, I dropped you like a flake, even after you sent me that wonderful email letter.
Sorry -- you don't know HOW sorry I am.
When I received your letter we were on our way out to spend a couple of days in Chincoteague. I printed the letter out and took it with me and read it in the car and cried and started composing my answer right away -- in my head. Unfortunately it never got any farther than that, because by the time we got back home to where my computer is I had changed my mind about what I wanted to say.
Then life took a few unexpected unhappy turns and, presto, I was distracted.
Then, I don't know, it seemed like I had nothing to say to you that would be worth the time it would take for you to read it. Sometimes it seems like I can just feel God squeezing my lips together and saying to me, "nope, don't say anything -- just be quiet."
If all of this is sounding lame, please believe me that I'm not making any of it up.
I've been reading your posts and every time I read one I think to myself, "MAN! I want to sit down with you and talk face to face and just ramble all over the place, and see if we can come up with anything profound to say or think about."
You know -- this is getting too long for a comment. I think it's time to try to write that letter to you -- is your e-address still the same?
Love you! (Sure you do, said Sarah.)
Post a Comment
<< Home