In Medias Res

Let me get an introduction, from the new section...

I moved to Iowa in 2011 — so we’re way past the “gee wiz things are different here” stage. There will be no superficial observations of superficial differences. Sorry, but I had those a twelve years ago and they’re not fresh nor relevant anymore.

No, we are firmly in the middle of things: I’ve lived in Iowa for more than a decade; and as much as I love visiting home (and Florida will always be “home”), I no longer want to live there.

Yes, it’s cold here in winter, and the days get painfully short. Yes, the flora and fauna are completely different — apple trees and Canada geese all over, it’s bizarre. Yes the humans who live here are, in certain quarters, stultifyingly homogenous — this is not a global destination, not a gateway to South America and the Caribbean, and you don’t hear five different languages (or more) spoken every time you go to the grocery store. There are so many things I miss about that strange strip of land between the swamp and sea, between the Atlantic and the Everglades, which is home for me: the familiarity of palm trees, of air that smells like salt, of people who never assume anything about you, because you could anyone from anywhere.

The unofficial slogan of the Midwest is, “Bloom Where You Are Planted.”

made with artist.ai based on verbal prompt for “a palm tree in a snow-covered field near a John Deere tractor,” and a reference sketch I hand-drew; according to my hubs, that sketch makes this image more valid as “art” — but no less exploitative of human artists and destructive to the environment. And he’s right

“Bloom where you are planted”: it’s a way of saying, look, maybe you didn’t choose to be here. Maybe this wasn’t your first choice. But this is where you landed, like one of those millions of helicopter-winged maple seeds that glide to earth on late-spring breezes, and whether you find yourself in fertile soil by a river bottom or the crag of a broken sidewalk, it is your job to grow.

I moved here for a job. Certainly lots of people move here having never thought, “Iowa is where I want to go.” That’s why that joke from Field of Dreams is a joke. And that’s why that joke is a t-shirt:

https://www.raygunsite.com/products/heaven-1

But in a weird way Iowa can turn into a little slice of heaven. So much so they actually built the baseball diamond in the cornfield in 2021 — and a lot of people showed up for it. In Star Trek, some writer passingly decided that James Tiberius Kirk was from Iowa — and the people of Riverside, Iowa jumped on it. Now it’s canon. I’ve been to the Star Trek museum twice: it’s freaking awesome. Also, the one Mexican restaurant in Riverside (I’m pretty sure it’s the only restaurant of any kind in town) is really good.

https://www.raygunsite.com/products/outer-space-1

So I guess what I’m saying is Iowa has a way of taking small, random gifts and growing them into something bigger, even giving passing phrases — jokes! — more space, more sun, more work, and longer term, deeper meaning.

I’m not sure if coming to Iowa was the random gift to me or if I’m the joke of a gift the state is cultivating into something good, but I do feel like I’ve become a better, stronger, wiser person since I’m moved here.

I want to tell others: come to Des Moines! And I do tell them that, sometimes, but they’re skeptical, they laugh. They think there’s nothing to do here. They’re wrong, sure, and I can show them that, but I’ve learned you can show people a lot of evidence contrary to their preconceptions, and they’ll still hang on to their preconceptions.

People are coming here, but they’re winding up here because of a job or something. Randomness. And no matter why, it makes me happy to know that Iowa is growing, Des Moines is growing.

But having grown up in South Florida during an era of out-of-control growth, I’m also glad that the growth isn’t happening too fast — moderation in all things, it’s the wisdom of ancient Greece and the modern American Midwest alike!

Affordable housing is keeping pace with the inflow of residents, around here, and that’s both a big deal and not an accident — that’s some civic officials and local developers managing to do their capitalism with that dash of practicality and decency that goes missing in all too many places (ahem Florida).

Build it and they will come: every day it seems I see more Florida license plates on the backs of cars, but I’m just attuned to those particular shades of green and orange. There’s research on this stuff, and most of the people who move to Iowa come from nearby states. They’re mostly young-ish, 30-somethings, even though the New York Times says Iowa is the best state to retire to.

And while it feels to me like there’s been an absolute exodus from Florida (almost all of my Florida friends have moved to other, less crowded and expensive, states), any such exodus is more than counter-acted by all those people who I don’t know who are moving there. Native Floridians are starting their lives in other places. People from other places are moving — often retiring — to Florida.

Who are these people? I don’t know. But they must have a lot of money and enjoy spending hours a day sitting in their cars.

Will the people who move to Florida stay there? I don’t know. But like every native Floridian, I’m well aware that new residents are more likely to be “transient” — they come and they go.

They’ll say “I lived in Florida once,” and “I miss the palm trees,” and “it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

I met someone once who claimed to know Florida very well, because her family always went there on vacation. Turned out her whole idea of “what Florida looked like” was an interstate off-ramp.

artist.ai “origami filter” with a verbal request for a flamingo wearing a hat, scarf, and boots — it decided to ignore me on the scarf and boots for some reason

Florida is a magical and wild place, as full of life and as deadly as the ocean itself. Florida is sharp and damp, dangerous and indescribably beautiful, over-run with invasive species, the most destructive of which is Man. It has the teetering grace of a 100-year old crocodile who might soon be reclaimed by the ages into the primordial muck, but she still has the teeth to take you down with her. Try it and see.

Iowa, a colleague (originally from California) told me, is a wasted state, it’s been ruined and wrecked and given-up-on: it’s a loss. It once had lakes like Minnesota, and was covered with oak forests, not to mention Native tribes. But the natives got killed, the lakes got drained, the trees got cut, and now the state is dry and flat. Its farms produce a lot of pork and toxic agricultural runoff.

Florida is blighted by the toxic waste of sugar-growers. And the fertilizers run off from all those green growing waterfront lawns to cause algae blooms that darken the sandy bottoms, killing the vegetation the manatees need to survive.

Florida is where I’m from: it’s in my DNA. Iowa is where I’ve landed, it’s where I’ve grown roots, and it’s where I’m reaching for the sun.

artist.ai “floral pattern” filter to a verbal request for “conch shells growing from corn stalks”; it wouldn’t show me all of its results because it said they were “NSFW” =D