I am SOOO Midwest...

I am sooo midwest.... This image feels like home to me...my kids groan during road trips until we get to "more interesting" areas...a.k.a. anywhere without cornfields...but the rows of corn and waves of beans bring me such a sense of home and comfort. Don't get me wrong, I love rolling hills and trees and water and even the mountains (though admittedly I haven't spent any significant time in any of our great mountain ranges). But eventually I long for the open land where I can see the sun set, unobstructed, over solid ground and watch the rain roll in. I will never be described as urban chic, though I am not country or western either. And I tend to take great offense to the depiction of the "stereotypical" midwesterner with wannabe last season hair, shabby chic, overstuffed taste and queen of the casserole menus. Midwestern transcends those things...those were midwestern decades ago. Today's midwestern, my midwestern, is eclectic modern...it's tattered now, not shabby which seems a little more chic. Though a true midwesterner still can't qualify as chic by most urban coastal standards. My home is a mix of old an new, of industrial and antique...never modern. I don't have a defined style because I just can't feel at home in one set of parameters. I have ideas for what my "someday" house might be, though no specific timeframe for achieving "someday". Though I know that "someday" will definitely be mostly rural...an afternoon at a suburban mall sends me screaming down the highway towards open spaces.

Fall is what makes me feel truly midwestern...the changing seasons are a large part of what defines the Midwest. It's the change in color of the corn fields and bean plants, it's apples and pumpkins and fall festivals that create a sense that sometimes the world is right. And while I long to see all of this great nation and other places around the globe, it is the rural midwest that I will always call me home.