Annual Midwest-South Tour

Me, my cousin Holly and my aunts Mio
and Patty from one of my trips back
to Indiana. I love this picture.

I'm heading back to Nashville. . .and Evansville. . .and Princeton. . . and Indianapolis. . .and back to Nashville this week. It's my vacation! Or at least one vacation that I'm using to take my annual pilgrimage back to the land where I came from. My cousin is getting married tomorrow and I want to be there--plus I get to see a few other cousins and an aunt that I haven't seen in a long time. BONUS!

What's tough about these trips is fitting it all in. I fly in and out of Nashville because it's typically cheaper and easier than Indianapolis. I rent a car and the real fun begins. It's a little more than two hours from Nashville to Henderson, KY/ Evansville to see my family there. Then it's about 35 more minutes north to see my dad and the wedding location in the Princeton area. After that, I get up on Sunday morning to roll up to Indy to see MY GIRLS!!! No trip to the Indiana vicinity is really complete until I see my girls and start some trouble.

From there I go back to Evansville to see more family that I neglected on my first pass and then to Nashville for a little more than 30 hours of trouble with my friends down there. Then back to work next Thursday unless I collapse from exhaustion.

A blur. A whirlwind. A marathon. Whatever you call it, it's quick, packed and a load of fun.

It's still hard not to refer to my annual trips as trips home, but Chef corrected me a few years back. I did the same thing when going just from Nashville to Indiana. "Home isn't somewhere else that you visit," he had said. "It's where you live. And you live here." And he's right. Home is where I live, and I live in Los Angeles.

I look forward to going back each year and catching up, but it obviously also brings up so many memories. I'm lucky because the good ones outnumber the bad by a landslide.

While I was raised in Indiana, I like to think that I actually grew up in Nashville. And when I left, I sobbed like a baby in the moving van all the way to Memphis. Completely inconsolable. Chef felt horrible and asked me why it was so hard. "Nothing bad ever happened to me there," I said. It was a possible exaggeration, because I don't live a completely charmed life, but on the whole, only great things happened in Nashville.It was home.

Of course, almost three years later (CRAZY!!) I can say the same thing about Los Angeles. Maybe my life is somewhat charmed? I dare say, a semi-charmed life?

But I digress. It's time to return to the land where highway driving means that miles and minutes are virtually interchangeable when estimating drive times.

Lock up yo husbands. Lock up yo wives. I'm heading your way TODAY.

Celebrating Independence

Baby, You're a Firework.

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. It is the perfect mid-summer break and is an actual holiday I can remember because of its theme. Sadly, I'm one of those people that Labor Day and Memorial Day seem like the same day, even though I know they aren't.

Some of my fondest 4th of July memories were celebrating at my Aunt Julie's family's farm (Thank you, Meades!). We swam in the pool (which had a slide and therefore upgraded it from any pool around). We had a raucous badminton tournament (shocking fact for people out there is that my mom was one hell of a badminton player--she could hustle a hustler in that area). My uncle Jeff, who I think was an electrician in his previous life,  not only rigged flood lights so we could play badminton past dark, but also threw one of the best fireworks displays out there.

But despite all the memories, I always think of this as Independence day. I've always been told that I've been independent myself and found in that a source a pride. I think part of it was because my mother highly valued independence. Whether it was true or not, I know she felt like she spent a good part of her life without independence. So she taught me to value my thoughts and actions as my own.

Now that I'm older, I still value my independence, but I've wondered: can you be married and still be independent? (Clearly not speaking in the political sense here). I think you can. Just like you can be American and not agree with all of our country's policies. You can be a part of a team or something bigger and still be independent. Of course, I think you have to fight for it more and do more work to make sure you aren't arbitrarily agreeing with the larger world out of ease.

There's not only work with independence, but a strong belief. I heard Amy Poehler say this at a speech a few months back and while I'm not pursuing comedy it still stuck with me. She said something to the effect of that if you choose to pursue something that's not the normal path of life, you should expect to have money, marriage, and kids later in life than all your friends. It resonated with me, and made me again think of the word independent.

So, we can celebrate the US all we want (and I am doing so by watching John Adams on HBO while working on a department budget), but I'm also celebrating my own independence. Hooray!