Ohio-Iowa echo
After my meeting in Cleveland, I headed south to Columbus.
I drove over subtle hills colored in the tones of drying corn and turned earth. Miles passed under a crystal blue sky, double-struck with power lines.
It was known, felt and suddenly collapsing in time.
I was 21, 19, 18, driving back from Iowa State University on a frozen November weekend.
Suddenly 16, behind the wheel of a powder blue Mercury Monterey listening to Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” in the heat of a Spirit Lake summer.
Now younger, smaller, running along the fence line blind to a world beyond the field’s border.
David Netsch, Greg Magg, Jeff Hanson…..names of childhood friends long buried under the strata of a lived life came flooding back.
I pulled over to the shoulder of the road while my own quaked, shuttering as my eyes filled with tears, sitting in an unrecognized body in the middle of Ohio.