a stellar smashing

I believe that apologies are in order.

Last May, when I returned to your furrowed fields and grassy flatlands, it was with the bitterest attitude that I unpacked my boxes, brimming with so many months of memories of my time in the city. I was ready for a summer of little inspiration, for weeks of inexhaustible boredom, of too much of the same old thing.

While I can’t say my expectations didn’t fulfill themselves, I believe I was being a bit unfair.

As it turned out, because of my time in Chicago, I was able to appreciate you a little more, Muncie.

I found in you many things I had noticed before, but never truly counted on: your quiet calm, the starry show that reveals itself each night in your sky, the eternal expanse of emerald fields reaching out in every direction, to every horizon. Things I once despised about you became minor blessings: your sluggish pace made me slow down and consider the life I’m living, the lack of things to do inside your city limits gave me more evenings alone at home, to read and think and contemplate the world from the comfort of my front porch swing.

It’s hard to admit it, but it’s true: sitting here in my apartment in Chicago, with sirens wailing in the streets below me and the honking of irritated traffickers beating these words from my brain, I miss you, Muncie.

Thanks for always being my home.

Goodbye for now,
Naomi