Hi.  I live in Ohio. Yes, college football, Cornhenge (look it up) and some Amish people. And ya know, Cleveland. I understand that’s about as far as most non Ohioans get.

I have primarily lived in the suburbs, but recently have ended up in a… semi rural area. Like… we have a Dollar General and a Family Dollar in town, but also you’ll drive by horses and cows like… next to them so…

We all know mountains are breathtaking and utterly majestic. And forest and stunning and zen. But, hear me out… flatness.

There is something so… it’s hard to describe. But, let me give you a scene. You’re driving at night. It’s dark. You know we don’t mess with streetlights. You almost could be driving in some post apocalyptic setting, you haven’t seen another car for a lil while. And you’re surrounded by flatness.

You keep driving, feeling maybe isolated, or alone, but then a ways off, on another street way in the distance, you see headlights. Somewhere on the road grid is another car, another person, doing their stuff, whatever it may be. And they may never come to an intersection near you, you may never end up on the same road, but you had a moment of togetherness in the empty, flat space.

Ohio does start to get hilly and craggy in the southwest, where we flirt with Appalachia on our neighboring West Virginia and Kentucky borders,  and there is an ancient kind of beauty there. Driving into the Hocking Hills, knowing glaciers formed that landscape feels overwhelming.

Driving through the flatness and seeing another soul across the fields feels the opposite of overwhelming. It feels… connected.

People dismiss the flatness, but take a minute and really not even look at it but like… feel it.

And eat corn.

Midwest love to y’all.