Home Again
Today marks the three-year anniversary of my return to Ohio.

I left my friend Julie's house in Cincinnati early in the morning on 18 August 2002. I had been traveling since 30 June: Honolulu to Victoria to the Kitsap Peninsula (where I spent two weeks with friends), then four days down the coast through Washington and Oregon and northern California to the Bay Area (where I spent 10 days at Stanford) to LA to Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe to Amarillo to Ft. Worth to Memphis to Lexington to Cincinnati. That day was ready to go "home."

I stopped in Columbus to have lunch with Jeff and see how much had changed in the six years I had been away. South campus was pretty much leveled, the funky shops and dive bars swept away to make way for wholesome, branded shopping at the planned Gap et al. — so alien to my college experience.


After lunch I started on the last and most familiar leg of my journey, the stretch of I-71 from Columbus to Cleveland, which I had driven several hundred times before in the time I lived in Columbus. It was familiar, yet not: widening here and there, the central rest stop relocated, more development at the exits. The end of the route was a bit of a change, too, since my family had moved farther west in the time I had been gone, making it more efficient to leave I-71 at Lodi and take Route 83 up to the lake.

For me, it's that first view of the lake that really says "home" to me. It's almost unexpected after driving a few thousand miles without seeing any body of water bigger than Lake Mead or the Mississippi River, the latter crossed at a rather narrow point and at dusk. It was a gorgeous August day on the north coast, and a bit of a wind was stirring up some waves on the deep blue lake.

My friend Tim convinced me to come out to the Fulton that night, and I'm glad I went. There I met or was reacquainted with several people who have become some of my dearest friends over the last three years, and was initiated into the Sunday night ritual that I so look forward to each week. Family aside, these are the people who have welcomed me home and made me feel a part of things here. To them I raise a glass — or, more likely, two, or three — because I'd be lost without them.

In three years I have bought and partially renovated a house, tried and gave up full-time freelancing, been elected to a board, become a pretty competent gardener, temporarily gave up clay and took up beads and metals, been adopted by a cat, returned to Hawaii for a visit and realized that what I miss is not so much the place as the circumstances I was in when I lived there, pretty much lost touch with my best friend (who inexplicably chose to marry someone else), took a full-time "real" job, reconnected with old friends, met some fantastic new people, had a string of amazingly bad dates that have become the foundation for my book, fallen in love and been devastated by its ending, started wearing makeup again, taken a bigger role in the lives of my niece and nephew, and tried hard to internalize that change is the only constant. In some ways I feel that my life could be better — better salary, a satisfying relationship, more time to play — but overall things are good. I'm glad to be home.
- posted by Lori @ 7:17:00 AM | permanent link | |