Coming Back
It was early spring in Cloud County， Kansas. My friend Ann and
I， on our way across the country， had stopped in the town of\"
Clyde to visit her old Uncle Earl. From the house in town where
we stayed， we drove with Earl out to the farm that had been his
home for most of his life. There we explored the abandoned farm-
house， and l climbed partway up the flame of the windmill to
look out across the new wheat flowing in the fields， a tide of short，
bright-green bladcs whipped into ripples and torrents by the
wind.
Back in town， we ate in the cafes and stood on corners talking
to neighbors， and in the midst of this homely activity I was sur-
prised to find the cxpcricncc of my oxen midwcstern past arising
in Inc. At moments I was caught in wondering sadness， then lifted
by joy that had nothing to do with the circumstances， or held in a
listening that sharpened my senses ahnost to the point of pain.
This awakening I had not anticipated， for my native Ohio is situ-
ated in a difffrcnt kind of Midwest than this prairie state of Kan-
sas. But the people of Clyde were known to me; the land， the
smells， the thousand details of ordinary life were familiar. For the
first time in twenty years I felt drawn to the region of my growing
up.
That powerful pull aroused my memory of leaving the Mid-
west so long ago. I recalled how， by the age of sixteen， I had
longed to escape to New York City. It was the \"navel of the
world，\" I thought， where I would learn life s secrets and become a
writer. I suffocated in my parents house on the outskirts of a
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