A Trip to Rootstown, Ohio

The sound of heavy rain has arrived.  We wondered if it was lightening ahead of us on the horizon as we headed down I-71 towards Cincinnati, a late night return from Rootstown, Ohio where my brother will be attending medical school in less than a month.  On the way up my mother and I shared the confined space of a car and made sense of our existence as two people do who share half their genes and thirty years of familiarity.  Comparing our commonalities, using our individual lives to shed light on ideas of being human in this world.  

When we arrived and met my brothers who had driven up earlier, the apartment was still unready after already a week of delay.  We had come to Rootstown, it seemed, to have an opportunity to stop in Dover, Ohio to see my great-grandfather's self made house (still there) and enjoy the local Cracker Barrel, where we sat in the outdoor rocking chairs reading the local paper, playing checkers, and me eating soba and seaweed brought along as a packed lunch (of course after an appetizer of grits and eggs over easy). (Photo credit to my mother)

Lettin' the time pass.  A good thing to do in Ohio country.  Watching the clouds and the wind pull in the rain and let it go.  The apartment was ready and we moved in boxes and bags in the spotty rain, holding doors and having them held for us by the red-eyed workers slowly bringing the building to fruition.  I got to see the apartment and beautiful school building and feel really excited for my brother and his coming year.

On the way home my mother and I listened to Puccini and Leon Redbone and the Beatles, releasing some of the tiredness of the day even as it kept accruing by the time and the travel.  We watched the mist on the corn and soybean fields, and the lightening over the horizon, pulling us closer to Cincinnati, to the beautiful sound of a heavy rain.