Day 1: Ann Arbor, MI to West Des Moines, IA

On July 21, exactly one week after getting married, my new husband and I departed on a road trip from Ann Arbor, Michigan to our new home: Seattle, Washington. This is my road trip diary.

Day 1

Ann Arbor to West Des Moines

The trip actually began the night before we left (Day Zero), with the acts of filling up then hooking up a U-Haul trailer—yes, in that order.  Which means that once the trailer was full of dozens of boxes (it looked like we had robbed a Crate and Barrel; spoils from our recent wedding), a coffee table, another table, and a TV stand, we proceeded to lock up the trailer, and begun the process of turning it 180 degrees.  We both grabbed the tongue (that bit that connects the trailer to the hitch), and on a count of three, lifted and turned the vehicle as far as we could.  It took about four or five attempts.  It was a good workout; both of us had sore lower backs the next day.

Day 1 dawned hot and sunny.  We left around 7:00 AM, Neal at the wheel, and me sleeping sitting up in the passenger seat—fitfully—for about four hours.  I didn’t miss much; I’ve driven that stretch of I-94 quite often, though this time we bypassed Chicago and thus its traffic.  Our route, to I-80 and points west, took us to Iowa.  There is not much I can say about Iowa; it looked like much of the rest of the Midwest, perhaps with more corn.  We began listening to our audiobook, On the Road, which Neal had read part of before losing his copy in Europe, and which I had not read at all.  Kerouac—or rather, the voice of John Ventimiglia, best known as Artie Bucco from The Sopranos, who was narrating the audiobook—said the prettiest girls of all lived in Iowa.  I did not see enough of them to make a judgment either way.

The Marriott hotel where we stayed was updated and trying to be trendy, at least on the inside.  Behind the reception desk hung artful photographs of corn stalks.  Metal-etched cornstalks grew on the dining room’s walls where we ate a lazy meal.  (Lazy, because we didn’t care to leave the hotel, and explore all that West Des Moines had to offer.)  We were one of only two couples at the restaurant.  The other pair spent much of their meal cozying up to each other, and kissing—loudly, wetly—in the half-privacy of their booth.  (Meaning, we could not see them from the neck down, thank goodness.)  Later, in the room, I joked that those two obviously weren’t married.  Neal made a face at me.  

We had been married one week.

From Michigan...

...to Iowa

Who are You, and Where are You From?

Where are you from?

It’s an innocent question, an easy one. People ask it expecting a few words in reply, a simple answer: I’m from Chicago. I’m from Branson, Missouri. To which they can respond: Oh yeah, I’ve been there. Or, Oh, what’s that like?

But when someone asks me this question lately, I freeze.  What do I say? And how much do I share?

To get you up to speed, I’m currently (living in? residing in? visiting?) Austin, Texas. The Fiancé accepted a summer internship here, and I tagged along, because: a) it was a chance to spend time together after eight months of long distance, b) I had nothing going on employment-wise, which meant I sure as hell wasn’t staying in Pittsburgh, and c) I’ve never been here, and I was curious.  I love going new places; it’s like an adventure.  (Though living in a characterless condo and going swimming every day isn’t exactly backpacking in Patagonia, but you take what you can get.)

But back to the question at hand. The obvious answer is that I’m from Michigan. I was born and raised there; I went to school there. Yet “Michigan” isn’t really significant to my adult life, other than being the place where my family lives. I never worked there (my adolescent stints at Meijer and The Pita Peddler don’t count), I’ve never paid my own rent or mortgage there, I haven’t directly been affected by its economy, its recent pains.

Actually, I'm from farther east, closer to the thumb.  But you get the idea.

Now, I suppose, I’m “from” Pittsburgh, though that doesn’t feel right either.  Three-quarters of the year I go to school there and am employed there, and I rent my own apartment—just me!—for the first time ever.  I have friends, a place where I volunteer, “my” gym, “my” stores, “my” places I go to write. But it feels temporary, secondary.  Temporary because once I graduate, I’ll move on to—I don’t know where. Secondary because it’s not really where I want to be (no offense to the University, and my incredibly intelligent and awesome friends). But, if this were Pretty in Pink, Pittsburgh would be Duckie (Jon Cryer, forever the second banana): he’s cool and nice and all, but you don’t want to date him, or take him to prom.

So who’s Blane (as played by Andrew McCarthy)? New York, of course, and Brooklyn specifically. I’m well aware I can’t technically say I’m “from” New York, or, God forbid, that I’m a “New Yorker.”  There are rules about making such claims, and being that I only lived there for four (I’m ashamed just by typing that paltry number) years, I can’t take ownership other than to say I lived there.

But when I’m standing in front of someone new, and they are politely waiting for an answer—so they can start to form a connection, and begin to piece together who I am—to say “Brooklyn” seems more telling than any other option. It’s where I ended one career and began another (and another), where I made my first real adult friends, where I grew my first (and only) real adult relationship—essentially, it’s where I became an adult.  And Brooklyn remains, in relationship terms, the One Who Got Away—the one who is the measuring stick for other relationships, other cities.  Which is why poor Pittsburgh, with its bad food and Midwest sensibility, never stood a chance. And why I keep fantasizing Austin to be Brooklyn—it’s just that someone shrunk it down and turned up the heat.

So what do I really say when people ask that deceptively simple question, Where are you from?  Inevitably, too much. That I’m from Michigan, but worked in New York, and now I’m a grad student at Pitt… And then their eyes glaze over, or they look at their watches, or gaze longingly at their cars, their escape.  And I realize I really need to keep it simple or I’ll never make new friends.

But I guess that’s the problem with clinging to a past relationship—it makes it that much harder to form a new one.