camping in the land of lincoln

May 10, 2022

It is a whole new feeling to be a traveler in my hometown. Everything is the same and everything is different. In the same way, I am the same and completely different. The trees are bigger. There’s more pavement. Businesses closed. New opportunities emerging. For the last several months, I’ve been taking the new roads, dirt roads, gravel roads, and washed out roads to get where I am going.

This trip has been about coming home before heading off on a great journey. It has been a joy to visit the land where I grew up. I am noticing this time more about the ways in which this landscape has shaped me. There is a great big pine tree in my campsite. I know that we grew up with the same rainstorms. The same water that allowed this tree to grow towards the sunlight is the same water that moved through me while I was growing. Soccer games in the rain. Walking home from school. Playing in the creek. Sledding in the snow.

There is a lot of water moving between the ohio and mississippi rivers— no wonder I feel like most comfortable in a state of constant motion. It is where I was born — where I came from.

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camping in illinois
the wind in the leaves
here too,
all shades of green

bright sunshine
finding ease
traveling home
to little egypt
where the rivers are merging