Willa Cather spoke highly of the prairie. In her book, My Antonia, she writes, “As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”
I am a child of the prairie, although I often forget it. Earlier this school year, I wanted my students to write poetry about the beautiful things in their neighborhood. I wrote an example poem about my hometown in the far northwest corner of Iowa. They were enthralled, perhaps as much as they would have been if I told them I grew up on the other side of the globe. The Midwest and its prairies are an unknown phenomenon to their Manhattan eyes.
When I moved to Michigan in high school, I quickly learned that there wasn’t any social capital to be gained by associating myself with the state of Iowa. Sharing about my hometown was met with the derision and scorn that adolescents use as an armor to protect themself from that self same scorn they fear at every turn.
“You are from Iowa? What do they even do there?”
“Oh, that place with all the corn.” (Insert teen voice dropping with scorn)
I quickly internalized a sense of shame towards my home. Apparently, it was embarrassing and backwards. And my shame led to a thorough masking of my childhood. I was talking to one of my best friends this week and he commented, “Oh yeah, I always forget that you even lived there.”
But truly, it’s beautiful. And I did love my time spent there. This is my attempt to rekindle a pride in my home and my rural upbringing. Cultural shame begets nothing in this world but pain, anger, and depression. If I want to value the stories of others, I should value my own as well.
I loved the long, sweeping grasses that remain of the forgotten prairie. We used to walk across the swaying cornfields to this little unused pocket of land we referred to as Rafiki Land. It was full of long, crunchy grasses, creaking fallen trees, and the occasional pheasant (affectionately named Rupert). I liked to refer to this area as the “Haunted Woods” and clamber up the half-fallen trees in my puffy pink coat.
I loved the culvert. As soon as spring peaked its brown nose through subsiding snow drifts, I begged my dad to let me put on my purple boots and run down to the culvert. Yes, this play area was just as glorious as it sounds: a drainage pipe under a road. And it created the most glorious kingdom of mud. I could entertain myself for hours letting my books sink in the mud and digging through the mud for treasures. Mud was one of my earliest companions.
Summers meant trips to Sandy Hollow to swim in the fishing hole. I would ride with Leah’s family to the old rope swing suspended over a small, dirty pond. As long as you got a good running start, there was no danger of dragging on the ground, and as long as you let go of the rope in time there was no danger of running into a tree.
July and August brought an unbearable heat, leading to days slumped under the crabapple trees eating Mr. Freezies. October brought the sound of corn husks skittering over the concrete streets. January brought a frost so cold it nearly froze your nose hairs, but made for great snow fort engineering.
And the sky. That endless horizon in every direction. Someone how the sky just feels bigger out there on the plains. But in a way that’s almost comforting, that feels like a wide open hug. An Iowa sky is beauty and she’s grace. She captures something of the eternal with every sunrise.
One thing I’ve learned from my students in Manhattan is to be proud of where I’ve come from. And I will keep working on it. Iowa doesn’t deserve the derision she’s been dealt. She is a perfect collage of rhubarb stalks, corn husks, and cicada song.
Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).
