Longing for home in Fly-over country

I grew up in "fly over country," the flat land in the middle of the country that helps people in New York and LA feel superior and gives them something to fly over.

Iowa is one of the "vowel states." you know, Ohio, Iowa, Idaho...one of the states everyone mixes up like they're interchangeable. "Oh, you grew up in Iowa? Isn't that where they grow potatoes?" "No, that's Idaho."

Iowa has corn. And hills. If you don't believe me, just go there. You won't find a potato field anywhere.

I left Iowa to go to college in another vowel state (Ohio), and then moved back to Iowa for grad school. At 25 I moved to Chicago, the biggest city in the Midwest, but in another vowel state. I guess I just can't get enough of fly over country. I even moved to a consonant state once. Colorado was beautiful, with mountains and lots of sun. I lasted 8 months before moving back to Illinois. I think consonant states are way too obvious.

David and I drove to Iowa Friday afternoon to visit my family, and then took a few days to celebrate our 2nd anniversary in a little town a few hours from Des Moines -- Elkader, Iowa. Yes. Elkader. It was one of the best tiny vacations I've had in a long time.


When I was a young adult, I just wanted to get out of Iowa. And it seems like everyone my age was feeling the same way. "Brain Drain", the Des Moines Register called it. I moved to the big city and stopped in the middle of the street and threw my hat up like Mary Tyler More and sang "I'm gonna make it after all!" Okay, not really. But I did get a buzz out of living in the big city. The El, the faster pace, the sophistication, the diversity, the Mies van der Rhoe buildings. I shopped in thrift stores and went to plays in 30-seat theaters and dated a guy who worked in a cigar shop and gave me a book of Noel Coward plays. I started sipping wine occassionally and went to poetry readings and dark smokey bars that had transvestite patrons. My friends were film makers and poets and actors and writers.

Chicago turned out to be a good combination of Midwest and Big City. I could drive to see my family in the other vowel states of Iowa and Ohio, but then return to Illinois and the city. Driving back from Iowa on Interstate 88, I still catch my breath when I see the Chicago skyline. But it doesn't hold the same excitement as it used to. I love Chicago, but it's never quite felt like home even though I've lived here for 18 years.

Iowa still feels like home. I can't shake the feeling. It comes over me as soon as I cross the Mississippi River. My tense shoulders relax, I let out a sigh. I see the green rolling hills and the tractors plowing the fields and the hawks perched on the fence posts. I see the deer grazing in the fields and the red barns and white farm houses with the perfectly manicured lawns. In Chicago, I miss just "running into" people. In Iowa last weekend I bumped into the following: 1) Donna, the mother of my youth group friend, Shirley. Shirley and I attended etiquette school together when we were about 12. We learned which one is the salad fork. 2) My cousin Julie and her husband Kurt at the City Market (a store like Whole Foods only a whole lot better).They were eating omelettes. 3) I ran into Twila at Target and we stood in the shoe aisle and talked about her brother, who's getting a PhD. in Philosophy, 4) At the same Target I saw my 2nd cousins Geri and Julie. Geri is a year older than me and never let me forget it. She used to hold me under the water when we went swimming at the Altoona public swimming pool. Who knew she'd grow up to be a member of the Iowa legislature?

In Chicago I don't bump into people I know very often. It's too big and everyone's too busy and we just don't have time because we're commuting and working hard to pay for our expensive housing.


After spending a few days with my family, David and I took off to wander around Northeastern Iowa. Apparently, the glacier that flattened the Midwest thousands of years ago missed an egg-shaped part of Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa. So there are hills....lots of rolling hills with farms and emerald green fields with black and white dairy cows lazily munching on grass. We drove through Grinnell Iowa and toured a bank designed by Louis Sullivan (see photos), and then drove up through Cedar Rapids and bought a vintage poster of an Art in America magazine cover designed by Alexander Calder at an antique store. Then we drove further north to Elkader Iowa and stayed at a B&B for the night. We sat on a porch swing and then walked down by the river. Kids played in the streets -- jumping rope, riding bikes and scooters.

"Let's just stay here and buy a house" I suggested. We saw beautiful Victorian houses for sale posted on the Realtor's office window for under $100,000. Surprisingly, David seemed open to the idea.

"But would we get bored?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said. "But people here are nice. And there's no traffic or smog."

"Yea, I think we'd make lots of friends and we could invite them over for dinner. Or we could just sit on our front porch swing and say 'hi' to everyone as they walk by."
I'm longing for less smog, traffic, and a lower mortgage. But I also think I'm longing for community and peace, simplicity and home. Which probably means I'm longing for God. Isn't that where all of our yearnings lead us?

If we move to Elkader, we'd probably find that the mailman was having an affair with the English teacher, and that the old Victorian house had a leaky roof, and we'd have nothing to do after we got tired of sitting on the porch swing.

On the way back to Chicago David and I listened to a Tim Keller sermon ironically titled "The Longing for Home". This world is not our home, he reminds us. Parents die. People I bump into at Target will die. The house I grew up in is smaller and less grand than I remember. Our longing for home and community is really a longing for God. We were made for something far better, and we're crazy to try to fill that longing with things that won't last.

It's probably not a coincidence that on the drive we saw gorgeous church steeples rising into the blue sky. God's reminder to us, I think, that our home is in him.