Place #11: Albert Lea

I packed the vegetable plants into the backseat of my car and headed home. I was planning on tilling the garden and putting in the goods that Sunday afternoon, but on the drive home I got a call from one of my New York friends (who still lives there), one of the Fab Four that makes up me, my best friend, and the two girls we met in kindergarten twenty five years ago. I hadn’t seen her (or the other two) since my best friend had her baby daughter two years ago. Two years is a very long time for any of us four to go without seeing each other. We’re nothing short of sisters if not closer.

She asked me what I was doing today, which I thought was odd. “Just putting in my garden,” I say, wondering why she didn’t want to talk about why she had been trying desperately to get a hold of me for the past twenty four hours. I had read all of her texts, got her voicemails, heard her voice on the machine at home, but hadn’t had a chance to call her back quite yet. I was assuming she either had something extremely juicy to tell me, or something extremely heavy. So when she asked such a casual, small-talk sort of question like, “What are you doing today?” I was slightly confused. She proceeded to say, “So…would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” I was speechless. Did I hear that right? I have really bad hearing you know… “What?” is what I said. She laughed and repeated herself. I’m pretty sure I said “What?” at least three times before she explained how it was possible for her to meet me for dinner.
As it turned out, she was in Iowa visiting her brother and after seeing a road sign for Minneapolis she realized that she was only four hours away from me. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure I squealed most of my words thereafter.

We decided to meet in Albert Lea, a two hour drive for both of us. I’ve heard of Albert Lea. It’s in the southern part of Minnesota which was the only reason I decided to use it as a blog spot. I needed a southern place to tag on to my twelve seeing on how most of my places have been city joints. There’s a reason most of my places have been city joints, though, and Albert Lea is proof that there really is nothing left to Minnesota’s redeeming qualities other than the city.

The drive down was un-expectedly exhilarating in its own way. It was a gorgeous, blue-sky, sunny sort of day where the light is so Kodak clear that you literally feel like you’re floating through a photograph, where the white of the clouds is luminous white, and the blue of the sky is lurid and crisp. As I passed the infinite stretches of fields and flatlands, I suddenly remembered that I had been down this way before.
This was not the first time I’ve driven through southern Minnesota. The last time I was here, on this highway, I was twenty one years old and heading for Florida to start a new life away from the place I hated so much. An overwhelming urge to relive the excitement of running away overcame me. I wanted to hit the road again. I wanted to drive across the country, again, not knowing how my recklessness was going to play out, and being positively thrilled about it. I wanted to re-live that adventure, re-taste the world for the first time, to experience being naïve and ignorant and sheltered all over again simply to regain the high of exploring a new life.

It’s sad, getting older. Even as an adult you still pass through phases and decades that bring you through a shedding of your skin, a loss of innocence, a newly replaced free-spirit with an older, cautious one. Ten years ago I could get into a car with nothing but a few hundred dollars and hit the road safely relying on nothing but a gamble that I would find a job quick enough to sustain me upon destination. I remember I had nothing but ten bucks in my pocket by the time I had reached Florida. I was fortunate that I found two jobs immediately. That sort of fortune doesn’t play out anymore. My second trip to Florida proved that plenty. That sort of recklessness (naiveté) only favors the young it seems.
As I drove I felt a sense of melancholy for the loss of that spirit, or at least the fading of it. I still now and again dive foolishly into things that usually fail in the end, but I certainly don’t do it with the confidence and gusto that I used to have. I’m far more cautious, insecure, anxious and practical than I used to be.

However…

When I was on that highway…

When I was heading for that horizon that never got closer…

When I was passing the fields glowing emerald in the sun, and the old farm houses that were unfamiliar, and the road signs that marked my path…

Oh, Reader! I felt like I had found a bit of my old self again, a bit that I actually wanted back. It was the beginning of something. I didn’t feel cautious, or insecure, or anxious, or practical anymore. I felt like I was twenty one, and even though I rationed that I could never be again, it didn’t stop me from believing that simply because I’m older now my adventures don’t have to come to an end. No. They need to begin. Something new has to happen in my life now.

My friend (and her brother) and I met at The Green Mill restaurant. After having to hand back a medium well done steak that was pinker than my rare one, and after realizing that I was charged four dollars for the extra cherry tomatoes I requested for my salad, I slipped the little china bowl that the tomatoes came in right into my purse. Forgive me, Reader. I seek satisfaction in the simplest (albeit illegal) forms of justice. The grown-up thing to do, I guess, would’ve been to gripe about the price of the tomatoes. But taking the bowl was somehow more exhilarating and satisfying.

After driving around the deserted Sunday streets of town, taking photos of buildings that have been standing for clearly more than a hundred years, we found a park to take some pictures in. We stood by a giant oak tree and quite traditionally snapped some memories into permanent existence. It was a lovely, lovely day.

We said our goodbyes with the promise that we would see each other again in July when I would be coming to visit New York. I left knowing that I’d never have the slightest interest in returning to Albert Lea ever again, but was overcome by the unexpected revitalizing the road trip had done for my spirit. Albert Lea means nothing to keeping me in Minnesota. But the reliving of the memory of ten years ago brought something back to life in me. I don’t want to leave Minnesota, no. But this small sprout of inspiration has swelled a once shriveled desire for change and growth. I’ve been dormant these past four years. It is time to move forward again.