Learning to Love Lincoln

Once upon a time, way back when Harry and I decided to get married, he offered to move to Denver, which was where I lived at that time. After some consideration, I decided I wouldn’t feel right about him leaving his shop and his family for me. I mean, Harry had owned his own business shop for twenty years: what if he couldn’t make a new start in Denver? What if he couldn’t find a job? I would feel terribly guilty. So, we made a deal. I would move to Lincoln and we would live there for ten years; and then it was my turn - we would move to where I wanted to live.

Sounded like a great deal at the time.

There’s a lot of wool being pulled over the eyes when you get married, by both parties. I pulled the wool over my own eyes in this particular case. When you’re first married, “deals” are concrete, set in stone. As our ten year wedding anniversary approached, I dreamed of the places I wanted to live. Oregon’s misty forests and crashing ocean waves were at the top of my list. My sister works for Sprint, and she was based there. Utah was a close second; I could work at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, surrounded by mountains and forests. Hiking in the mountains or strolls along the beach - it didn’t matter to me, one way or the other.

Ten years came and went. Harry wasn’t ready. “Give me five more years,” he said. “In five more years, I should have everything all ready.” Fifteen years came and went. Harry still wasn’t ready, and I’ll have to admit, during that year’s discussion, I was not nearly as nice. This wasn't the deal that had been set in stone. I'd paid my dues, it was my turn. With the advent of our seventeenth anniversary came an epiphany and I had to face the fact: we were never going to move away from Lincoln. I was stuck here. I wrestled with this realization, and quite honestly came very close to just pulling the plug on our relationship, packing up the dogs and a few possessions and leaving.



But when I turned 50 and dreamed up the Airstream Dream, somehow, things changed. The tension that had been building in my relationship with Harry dissipated, and for the first time, I could start to appreciate all that Lincoln and Nebraska had to offer.

Now, I am aware that every place has its down-sides; no one place is perfect. From my new vantage point and with its 20/20 hindsight, I can see that had I moved to Oregon, I would have been unhappy. I’m solar-powered, you see. I love sunshine. In Oregon's rain I would have moldered into a suicidal soggy lump. And Utah? Well, I still think I would do well in Utah. Or New Mexico, for that matter. Or southern California.

Today as I was driving the streets of Lincoln, I really saw the beauty around me. The trees are changing; Fall is in full force. Fall is my favorite season, especially in Nebraska. The humidity that saps my strength in Summer falls away, magically disappearing overnight, it seems, and the beautiful blue bowl of the sky deepens to a darker shade without the cloak of moisture. The sun is warm; the shade is cool - in fact, if there were mountains, it would be a lot like Colorado, where I grew up.



I took the dogs for a run at Wagon Train SRA today, and as I walked through the ripened fields I marveled at the crispness of the air, the fragrance of the grasses. With the sun warm on my back, I laughed out loud at Star’s antics and the bemused expression on JoLee’s face as Star ran big circles as fast as she could, coming as near as she could to careening into me, then into JoLee, and then into Tim. As I drove home, I wished I’d thought to bring my camera to capture the beauty of the farmland and the trees, the richness of the hues, the pastoral benevolence that seems to simply emanate from the rolling hills.

After seventeen years and a lot of angst, I think I can finally say it: Lincoln, Nebraska is my chosen home. It wasn’t until I contemplated leaving it that I grew to really appreciate it. It’s one of those “big little towns” that has just about everything a person could want - with a much smaller sordid underbelly than a big city. "Rush hour" lasts about thirty minutes. You can get from one side of town to the other in about half an hour. There are construction projects going on that I’m looking forward to seeing completed, and I don’t think I’ve quite exhausted my exploration of all of Nebraska’s parks and recreation areas.

I’ll be visiting other places, for sure - and I think I may find a little piece of property somewhere to call my very own, as an escape for those times when I just need to get away, but for the first time in my life, I’m calling Lincoln “home.”