About, Time and Grace--Prelude (A fragment, 4)

Indiana

I'm glad i never lived next to the water
So I could never get used to the beach
And I'm glad I never grew up on a mountain
To figure out how high the world could reach
I love the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street
And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

For some the world's a treasure to discover
And your scenery should never stay the same
And they're trading in their dreams for Explanations
All in an attempt to entertain
But I love the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street
And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment

I'm glad she never fell in love with me

The trick of love is to never let it find you
It's easy to get over missing out
I know the how's and whens, but now and then,
She's all I think about

I wonder how it feels to be famous
But wonder is as far as I will go
Because I'd probably lose myself in all the Pictures
And end up being someone I don't know.
So it's probably best I stay in Indiana
Just dreaming of the world as it should be
Where every day is a battle to convince myself
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

(by Jon McLaughlin)

They were both from Ohio, and moved to Indiana. Separately. But ultimately, together.

How strange is the Midwest in August. The summer has beat it up and worn it out and hung it out, already dry.

The lush green of June becomes a crinkly golden brown.

If August days hang heavy with heat and humidity, don't be fooled. Somewhere to the north lies a cold front that will swing through in the night, maybe with a thunderstorm. You'll get up the next morning and the air will be cool and the sky will be clear and suddenly you'll remember, just for a minute, how autumn feels.

Starts the harvest, then, in August, the corn and soy beans and the truck vegetables in gardens everywhere. Fields that were tilled brown just a blink ago in May or June, now mature, their growing seasons finished. Their time, completed.

And noisy, August is--the cicadas and locusts in full scream, protesting their too-short lives, protesting their time spent underground, yelling for somebody to love them. Here I am, in this tree, they scream. Come find me.

But oddly, even as summer slows down, a new kind of year starts up--all the school kids who believed in June that summer was forever, find that, indeed, time does fly, and August means school. A new grade, a new year, new teachers, new friends, new books.

Even for people without kids, who are years removed from the school year, August holds that dichotomy: Summer's over. But something new is beginning.