I'm Home

Guess I should define "home".

I just spent the better part of a week at my sister's near Springfield, IL. It's not "home" but almost feels like it. Whenever I visit, I have a bed and a TV at my disposal, and I pretty much help myself to food in the fridge. Since Shari and her husband moved to Springfield many years ago, I have visited relatively often. I just put the car on automatic pilot and let it take me there. The trip takes anywhere from 3 3/4 to 4 hours over some of the most boring roads known to man, but boring is good when you're driving alone.

My grandparents' farm is a couple of hours north of there, near Streator, IL. That's where I was born...Streator...although I never really lived there for any length of time. The farm was the only REAL home I knew through my childhood because of our family's military status. We moved a lot, but we always went "home" to the farm. After my grandparents and parents died, we sold the property to our farmer. It was a wrench but inevitable.

Since 1988, my home has been in Indiana (because of my then-spouse). We were divorced a scant three years after we moved here. It took me awhile to get used to being a Hoosier--something we always made fun of before--but I bought my little house-on-a-slab as a newly-single woman and did my best to make it a home for Megan and me...and later, my grandchildren. It needs a lot of help, but it is my sanctuary, of sorts. Be it ever so humble...

Geologically, Indiana is by far the prettier state; however, I've never played favorites. And here's why: it's all about perspective. I've been to California many times. The rugged scenery and absolute beauty of the place is unquestionable. But it wasn't home. I've been to the Rockies, Appalachia, the Orient. They were all fascinating places, but they weren't home. It would be nice to claim the beautiful places of the earth as home...but sometimes, home is just what is there in the place that you love. In "my" part of Illinois, the only thing that stops your view is the actual curve of the earth. It is as flat as flat can be. Looking off in any direction from the car, one can see miles and miles of corn fields and bean fields....and grain elevators. At one point, I could see huge grain elevators in every quadrant of my field of vision. Illinois is a breadbasket for the nation...and it's MY state. When I am driving over that flat, boring, expanse of land, I am somehow comforted. No matter where I am in space or time, Illinois will always be home.