Note: Longform essays will post every Tuesday. Today is part one of four of On Place. This is a new ongoing feature for paid subscribers.
Part One:
Prologue
Borders
Island
Buxton, Iowa
Prologue
I was going to write a book about Iowa. Then, I realized it’s already written.
It’s called:“What Your Getting Wrong About Appalachia” by Elizabeth Catte (published by Belt Publishing - you should also check out Ann Trubek’s newsletter)
It’s the antidote - from where I sit as a white lady from a place not dissimilar to the region know as Appalachia - the sweeping Midwest aka: the Heartland.
I’ve read the book and refer to it quite often. Catte’s insight, historian eye - her obvious love of her Home (her Place) - allows her to be honest about what forces (from within and without) have ruled the region.
This passage describes the way I think about Iowa:
“There’s not a single social problem in Appalachia, however, that cannot be found elsewhere in our country. If you’re looking for racism, religious fundamentalism, homophobia, addiction, unchecked capitalism, poverty, misogyny, and environmental destruction we can deliver it in spades. What a world it would be if Appalachians could contain that hate and ruin for the rest of the nation. But we can’t”
This passage from Willa Cather’s My Antonia also describes the way I think about Iowa:
“…buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: during summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the colour and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and grey as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.”
The passages may seem at odds; one calling out the ills of a region the other a fantastical view from a fictional train.
But, both can be true, are true and occupy the same place all-at-once-everywhen for me. You might feel this way about something or some place, too. We’re human. As a result we are a confusing mess of right angles and flesh - certainly holding two opposing views of one thing at the same time should come as no surprise.
Truth makes this possible.
Telling the ugly truth is love as much as telling the beautiful truth. Love as I define it is being willing to die on that hill. Whatever hill it is you choose. Iowa - the only place that is really home - is that hill.
Iowa is a political animal. I always laugh when people from home say they keep politics separate from their lives or they don’t get involved in politics or whatever they say that is laughable. The only way politics (or more aptly policy resulting from the political process) doesn’t touch a person is if they are one of The Ruling Class. In that case you run the whole damn thing.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Noheartland to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.