I’m having a love affair with the state of Ohio. Whenever socially appropriate I’ll tell friends about its rolling green hills, or about Cleveland’s beautiful public auditorium and grassy mall. Friends politely listen to me ramble, baffled and amused, and then we move on to other topics. My husband thinks this is strange, too, but he is having his own flirtation with the state of Colorado. I think he understands. How curious that as a 5th generation Californian I should suddenly be tempted to pick up and move to a small midwestern state where I have no familial ties or history.
I have been to Ohio six times. In college I went to Canton for a swim meet. It was in March and we got caught in a spring storm. It was the first time I saw traffic lights suspended by wires and as they swung wildly over city intersections, I couldn’t believe they weren’t flinging off into space. We swam at a high school natatorium (another first!) adjacent to the National Football League Hall of Fame with its odd architecture and ramshackle little stadium. My father was a football coach and we were a football family. I remember thinking, “This is the Football Hall of Fame?” And that was that – my first impression of Ohio. I didn’t return for 30 years.
In the summer of 2016, I happily played Sherpa to my triathlete son Thomas and we visited Kenosha, Madison, Des Moines, Cincinnati and Omaha. I called it our Tour of the Midwest. For our Ohio trip we flew into Dayton and drove south an hour to reach the northern suburbs of Cincinnati. I had a friend years ago from Cincinnati who five minutes after meeting me asked if I had ever eaten Cincinnati chili. I think my only goal for the trip was to finally try some. The weather was muggy and unpleasant, and I spent too much time driving to shabby strip malls to get Thomas special pre-race meals at Noodles & Company. He raced poorly after a bicycle malfunction and I probably ate three helpings too many at Skyline Chili. To be honest I wasn’t very impressed. Omaha earned my affection that summer. I called my daughter and told her she should get a job there after graduation.
Thomas raced three summers in a row in Cincinnati. He and I stayed in the same hotel, ate the same meals and followed the same routines. The week before his final race there last summer I had a very hectic and bittersweet week in Philadelphia helping my daughter Caroline get settled into her new apartment and job. Two days after leaving her in Philadelphia, Thomas and I met in the Denver airport on our way to Ohio. He attends the University of Colorado and now lives full time in Boulder. Together we got to celebrate his fantastic final race there. Cincinnati was good to us and sadly we said goodbye. We were on to Cleveland the very next week.
Cleveland was a pleasant surprise. It has a beautiful lakeshore community and park, major sports venues, a clean and well-maintained downtown and apparently the largest outdoor chandelier in America. It has world class medical care and top-notch museums and universities. I complimented a local citizen working at the marvelous Heinen’s Market and Café and she politely smiled, “Yes, we are getting there.” Thomas raced twice that weekend. On his second day they turned his triathlon into a duathlon due to unsafe waves and currents in Lake Erie. Cleveland even has an ocean! Why don’t we live in Cleveland? Are Clevelanders deliberately keeping their Land a secret?
My husband Tim has a terrible habit every time we get on a freeway in Los Angeles. He looks out at the graffiti, trash and homeless encampments and wonders why we can’t do anything about this mess. He always asks the same questions: Is our state too big? Too unmanageable? Is there too much traffic and sprawl? Should we stay here? I brace myself whenever we drive anywhere together. I kept thinking about that during my two-hour drive from Cleveland to the little town of Granville, Ohio. While in Cleveland for Tom’s race I told my younger son Mark I would scope out a little liberal arts college, Denison University, to see if it was worth a college visit in the fall. I left the exhausted Thomas in our hotel room and took off – one hour south on the freeway (no graffiti or trash or homeless encampments anywhere) and the second hour on a picturesque country road winding through small towns, rolling hills and past many, many farms. Tim would like Ohio. I knew Mark would like Ohio too, so I booked us a trip to Columbus. I knew immediately he would like Denison with its proximity to the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team, its stunning campus and friendly people. After our college tour, on the drive from Granville across Ohio toward Pennsylvania to see Caroline, he just kept saying how beautiful it all was. He fell under the spell too.
Mark applied to Denison early decision and is now officially a member of the Class of 2023. How did we arrive at this point that my youngest child is going away? A friend asked me recently how I was doing, and I told her that it felt weird that for the first time in 22 years I don’t have a clear sense of what comes next. I feel untethered. She, with her two school-aged kids and a full-time job, gloomily noted that she knows exactly what she will be doing for the next ten years. I’m untethered and she feels shackled. How do you embrace freedom and stay grounded at the same time? As my children flutter away it is time to hold on tight or I risk fluttering away with them. I belong in California. I don’t belong in Ohio. With Thomas and Mark by my side I peered into a world that isn’t mine: an idyll – beautiful, interesting, different and for me conveniently devoid of complexity, connection, and the heartache of real life. I will not be escaping to Ohio. I will not escape the change coming my way. I will let my heart fly off with my kids into the world and I’ll keep myself here.