Where I Was From

Omaha, NE

The truth is out: all you have to do is wander around an upscale shopping district in a small town wearing a backpack the same size and weight as yourself, and everyone will stare at you like you're a space alien.

Sniffly goodbyes were said in Chicago after a day roaming the Loop and an evening of me interrogating everyone around about the specifics of snow survival. I still don't think I understand how the whole "winter" thing works. Sounds like living on the moon all winter, the way you can't leave the house without all that equipment on. But I bet it's beautiful, just the same.

Once I got sick of lugging my backpack around Omaha's Old Market district, I found a park with a huge dancing fountain and sat in the grass for a few hours. The prairie sky has always freaked me out a bit when I'm out here. It's so immense and blue that I feel overwhelmed when I look at it, as if the ground beneath me is rushing up to meet it.

We stayed up til three in Grandma's basement shooting pool and speaking of our scandalous past. I've been back to Nebraska a couple of times in the last decade, but this full cast of relatives hasn't gotten together here since 1994 when our beloved patriarch died - four of us cousins, two aunties and my dad, and of course Grandma. (minus my mom. Hi mom.) I'm extremely curious to see baby cousin again, since none of us have seen her since she was running around in a neon unitard, covered in ice cream, and insisted on sleeping with her tap shoes and swimsuit on. I think she also bit one of us. Now that we've respectively gone between seven and twelve years since seeing her, she's gone off to college, grown to be maybe six feet tall, and is modeling.

I'll post some pictures eventually. Gotta go wash that Chicago bar smoke out of my clothes. UGH.

Labels: travel

posted by Leah @ 12:18 PM