Hello, Ohio (an everyday essay)

Hello, Ohio, the back roads

("Ohio," Over the Rhine)

Somewhere west of the Pennsylvania border but east of Columbus, the tree-dense slopes on either side of the highway started to ease themselves down to the ground. It was subtle enough that I don't notice it at first, but eventually the mountains shrunk to hills shrunk to fields, the way icebergs of plowed snow in parking lots melt and melt in the spring, until one day there's nothing but a puddle where once stood a dirty white mound. Out on the highway, maybe an hour from Columbus, the treetop vistas and the cradling valleys gave way to farmland flat as paper.

Last month I drove to and from Ohio twice in eleven days, and each time that I hit the edge of the heartland, an unexpected unease set in. The same thing happened a few years ago when I drove from Pennsylvania to Indiana for the first time. Somewhere around Sandusky the landscape changed, and I understood why Ohio is part of the Midwest. In all three cases, when the foothills of the Appalachians melted away into that plains carved by ancient glaciers, my internal compass went haywire. I felt twitchy. Overexposed. As though I were suspended in a perpetual state of waiting.

** ** **

In a grocery store parking lot in Ashland, Ohio, I saw an Amish family: Mother in her bonnet. Father in his beard and suspenders. Son in his little-man hat. They climbed into their black horse-drawn buggy and drove away. I was eating baby carrots and hummus inside my blue RAV-4, having a quick snack before I started the 190-mile trip home. With one or two rest stops along the way, I'd be back in my driveway in three and a half hours. The same trip in an Amish carriage would take nearly 24 hours. That's without stops and going full-tilt at a buggy's top average speed of eight miles an hour. If the horse is slow, you're looking at a full day, a full night, and a half day on the road.

** ** **

My second recent Ohio trip took me six hours west and south to Cincinnati, and then two minutes over the river into Kentucky. At that point things begin to tilt Southern, and the terrain picks up some more hills.

When I was a kid, six hours in the car invariably meant heading east to our family's annual New Jersey beach vacation.

Six hours on a plane can take me west to Seattle or east to London.

Six hours in a carriage with a fast horse would get me almost from my house to Pittsburgh International Airport fifty miles away.

** ** **

An old, lone tree stands in the middle of a field. You see it all the time in farmland if you look for it: a giant maple or oak keeping vigil on an island of grass, smack dab in the middle of tilled brown earth. A shady oasis for farmers, some say; a holdover from the old days before motorized equipment could take you quickly from the far end of the wide field to the barn. Or shade for livestock, should the field be used for grazing. Or a landmark by which to keep track of your location in all those featureless acres, others say. Or the result of intact land where large boulders made clearing it impossible. Or an invitation of hospitality to birds who eat the fieldmice. Or, as the Irish might say, a portal to the fairy world. Or a simple matter of aesthetics and sanity, something beautiful to rest the eyes from the terror of all that open space. A single tree in the perpetual act of waiting.

** ** **
** ** **

Hi. So....I've been in Ohio lately, and when I sat down to tell you about it, what I'd intended as a blog post turned into the beginning of an essay, so I decided to share part of that beginning with you. I've had a terrible time trying to write essays lately, and now I think I've discovered the cure: Pretend to write a little blog post--nothing of import, a trifle, really--and then let it sprawl and unspool until you have several pages, a solid start to something more. Basically, I'm tricking myself into writing.

I'll be back soon with more scenes from Ohio, including some thoughts from the River Teeth Creative Nonfiction Conference and moments of beauty from a special Over the Rhine concert at Nowhere Farm.

** ** **
** ** **

About Everyday Essays: At least a few times a week I jot down notes about something -- usually a small moment, detail, or thought -- that I want to write about. Most of those ideas stay frozen as notes and never bloom into essays. Everyday Essays is my writing practice to allow some of those notes to move beyond infancy. I've decided to share some of them with you here, even if they're still half-naked or half-baked. The word "essay" (as is almost always noted when the form is discussed) comes from the French verb essayer, which means to try. The essay is a reckoning, a rambling, an exploration, an attempt. Think of these Everyday Essays as freewriting exercises, rough drafts, or the jumbled, interconnected contents of my mind, which may or may not take root and grow into longer (deeper) essays.