elise goes to ohio, or, do You believe in God? Really

a story about ohio with hardly any words at all















































































































































































































































































































































8:17 pm. 3/16/09 rose's roof still. during house meeting. oberlin, OH.


this is a town you're not meant to spend your life in. you start here, and you might end here, but you're supposed to escape sometime in the middle; “the ones who are still here are quietly thought of as...those who failed to take flight-”
it smells like woodsmoke and late summer. turn of the season birds, turn of the season late afternoon light. we've gotten evening back from the clutches of winter and its 4 p.m. darkness. it is eight at night and the sky still has a little fight left in it. birds do. I do. and wow, I do- it must be the quiet. even though this is a new place it's set in a shell of the familiar. it is beautiful and exciting, in a comfortable way. like a dad getting a nice new armchair, secretly for sleep.

I could learn to love myself here, it would be so much easier.

There's a political map in pastel colors in my head and it won't get out. I'm on a pushpin in Ohio. landlocked in the gentle middle. the edges got so roughed up, of the US of A- rockies and appalachians and all that mess and here ohio is like the few good pieces of bread in the middle of the crushed loaf. the sidewalk in front of the tank is a perfect intentional curve. there's nothing for it to avoid like in the northeast. the streets make sense even though this isn't a city. there are rules to the numbers of houses. there's a theatre for three dollars.

it makes me wonder what I did by moving to The Place during those years where it's still alright to make excuses, still alright to live in the places people shouldn't spend their whole lives in. I gave something up and gained something and i'll probably live not quite as long. i'd never sleep here, i'd just walk the streets because my head wouldn't have used up all of its tolerance for noise, and light, and navigation.

what did I do

i'm looking down at a little town that looks like a flat benign hometown. full of kids I would have loved to know in grade school. people are passing by in their cars just bassing. it vibrates out and up to me like jam'n 94.5 FM did to me all those years back, when God did I have to search for people to love. thank God I learned that love has nothing to do with anything I thought it did. I remember all I wanted when I was a freshman and a sweet 14 was a boy with a car to drive me around in, listening to the radio and spending time at the Gulf station and on 495. the loveliness of that situation would have filled in the holes where the loveliness in him should have been, I told myself without knowing I was telling myself. I fell in love with ugly boys thank God. the sparks. the special I found in the sea of hometown doldrums.

here almost fooled me. I would have loved this. everyone dresses in my favorite colors. no one washes their hair. and i'm sure that there's a particularly special population-
but i'm so glad I learned to love the ugly ones, the unsavvy because they have been the only ones i've ever loved.






7:27 pm 4/9/2009. Manhattan, the apartment.

i learned a lot of things in ohio. i learned that i like quiet. that i enjoy cooking food to feed twenty or more. that some people find me handsome. that some find me pretty.

that comfort isn't as hard to come by as i once thought,

that i love my small-town memories for a reason,

that i can write when i'm content too, that i shouldn't panic, that i'm not behind. that i wasn't making it up in my head that new yorkers were kind of mean. that there are some sweet, sweet people on this rock of ours.

i was reminded of a lot of things as well. like how much i miss rose, and how much i miss the smell of dirt, and being outside, alone.

every day, even if i'm sad, i wake up feeling luckier, luckier luckier luckier- my summer life is taking shape, i have a place to live, i have a place to work, and both are beautiful beyond measure. i have a quiet roof, outside, a place to be alone. i have fire escape room for a garden. i have windows with sun, and real, old wooden floors. there are no right angles in the entire apartment. i have a job with no dress code, an incredible salary, free vegan food, no air conditioning, and with a built-in reason to smile at everyone i see.



i think that rose may have packed some ohio in with my dirty clothes. and i suitcased them back to the city and washed them with everything. and now ohio is everywhere, even rubbing off on my tomorrows and next years.

so thank you.