A student of mine in Yemen was telling me how much she wanted to go to the US. “Is there any place in particular that you’d like to go? I asked her. “Oh yes,” she nodded her head enthusiastically, “I really want to go to Minnesota…”
Really. That caught me off guard. I was expecting NYC, California, maybe even Florida, but Minnesota? It turns out that she has a cousin living in Minnesota and is constantly regaled with stories about how beautiful the state is. The pictures really made her want to come even more.
Huh. I never really considered Minnesota an ugly place, but I always imagined it to be rather nondescript. That puzzled me for a while and I eventually forgot about it. Yesterday, as I was driving back to Gloucester from DC I remembered her. I was looking at some rather nondescript farmland a little after sunset. The leaves have just started to turn and a full moon was big and just over the tree line.
When I first got back, I was overwhelmed by all the green. All the different shades, all over the place, it was just too much. It took a week for that to wear off. I’ve missed two falls, and I’ve missed them. The view of that farm, the smell, and the light were beautiful. Coming from Yemen, I get it now. We live in a beautiful place…
One reply on “Minnesota… really?”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I used to live in western Kansas and actually found the flat “wasteland” (as some call it) stunning. To watch mature wheat blowing in the wind is akin to visiting the ocean…only without the crowds.