After many years, though, as I felt myself becoming less and less a Minnesotan and more and more a Washingtonian, I began to feel interested in seeing the sights on trips home, both the new ones and the old ones I'd never gotten around to seeing while growing up. I was becoming a tourist in my own hometown!
And when my father died, something big changed. Suddenly Minnesota meant home in a new, or maybe renewed, way, and I suddenly couldn't get enough of loons, Garrison Keillor, or WCCO radio. Because I had lost such an important part of my rootedness, I felt a strong need to grab hold of whatever would affirm my Minnesotan background. It was startling and mysterious, this desperate call to the place where I grew up.
Over the past few years I have found myself looking at the Star Tribune real estate ads, imagining myself buying the perfect bungalow in Minneapolis, somewhere near the lakes. And every time I visit, I enjoy it more and more. There is always the chance that it has to do with the relaxation and momentary happiness of being on vacation, away from the responsibilities of home and work, but I can't help wondering if it's more than that, if it has more to do with that elusive quality of life thing, especially "Minnesota nice" - which is, I can say with the authority of someone who has lived elsewhere for 24 years, more than simply a self-adulatory construct of the state's own residents. If people everywhere have to deal with the same things - commuting to work, going to baseball games, buying toothpaste at the drugstore - then it is the little things, the chance encounters with service personnel or fellow residents, which make the difference. When people greet you or say "thank you" and "have a nice day" after ringing you up, it's clear they actually mean it. When people who are supposed to help you on the phone actually do, and you realize they even want to, it feels like a time warp. When someone drives you home because you missed your bus, it's unbelievable but real.
At the end of one's career, then, when thinking about where to spend the remaining years of one's life, it makes a great deal of sense to return to the place you first felt warm and safe, especially if as an adult, you have come to an appreciation of that place that you lacked as a child, an appreciation that has grown and strengthened over time.
Last weekend I attended a family reunion, the first for my family not precipitated by a death
or marriage proposal. Going to events together and simply sharing meals and enjoying each other's company were powerful experiences in that we were there to do that and only that. For me it was reconnecting with family in a new way, with the sole purpose of reaffirming our ties and evidencing the worth which we all placed on doing so. As a middle-aged man, I no longer take my family for granted as I did in my youth, and I am grateful to all those who showed me along the way how precious family is and who brought me to a place where I can appreciate it for the rest of my life.It's good to spread your wings and explore life wherever it may take you. I still can't see living where I have to shovel snow, worry about the pipes freezing and the car starting in the morning, or run indoors at twilight to avoid mosquitoes so large that t-shirts commemorate them as the state bird. But if in no other way than in my heart, I can always go home again.
