Since I left Wednesday, I decided to drive leisurely to Grinnell. I diverted at times to some backroads. The dry, brown drought of southwest Ohio (I must emphasize the southwest, since northeast Ohio has seen its worst flooding in 100 years) soon gave way to green, thriving vegetation. I stopped at a cafe near Peoria where I listened to some eight old men sit around and talk about, in order, food poisoning, laxatives ("prune juice always loosens me right up"), whichever war they fought in, social security benefits, and "some old sumbich" they all knew. They were just too cute.

In Northern Illinois, I drove right into storms, the same ones that hit Chicago and spawned many tornadoes (I looked but didn't see any of them). They were breathtaking storms. All the rest of last night (Thursday) I drove through intermittent driving rain. Lightning threw webs across the entire sky. I even left the interstate to park in a lot and watch the storms crawl over a small town while the crickets chirped and wind gusted through tall grass. The lightning in thiws storm looked so close, but it was still so far away, being cloud to cloud, that the thunder it created was barely audible, if at all. Just flashes and flashes in silence. That is the nature of these expansive storms. The storms across the vast midwest are visible for perhaps a hundred miles.

I stopped for some time in Iowa City. I went to MY old park. MY PARK. The city park where I have some of my first memories ever. As a baby. Unbelievably, the carnival rides are still there. Yes, everything on them has probably been replaced in the last FORTY years, but they are in the exact same place. I sat on a swing and watched the cars go by and imagined them the way I saw them as a baby. A busy road runs behind a bunch of trees, so as a baby I thought they were actually little cars, in trees. Of course long ago I realized that memory was actually due to not knowing how to perceive size and distance accurately yet. A baby learns it early.

It's one of those things that a person has been blind for life, upon seeing for the first time, has to learn cognitively. When Jesus healed a blind man by mixing spit and dirt and touching the man's eyes with it (something like scales fell from the eyes, so perhaps it was what we now know as cataracts), he then asked the man what people looked like. "They look like trees walking" said the man. Jesus touched his eyes with a second pat of spittle and dirt, and that brought the actual interpretation of what the man was seeing. Had Jesus not touched him a second time, this man would have had to learn completely how to perceive size, distance, where one thing ends and another begins, the meaning of shadows, light, human facial expression, movement, colors, everything. What an alien a human must look like to an adult seeing one for the first time! For that matter, a baby! I remember when Nathanael was just born, how he just spent so much time LOOKING on the first day of his life. Just looking and quietly, intently, focusing on sources of light. Micah spent his first moments just looking at my face and Steve's face, rolling his tongue the whole time.

Iowa City was so flooded that a "puddle" in the middle of the park had become a large pond. About a dozen college students were throwing frisbees around in it, diving and sloshing in it and having a great old time. I thought of the lack of rain back in Cincinnati, the curled up leaves around my house, the grass that everywhere has just given up. No way to even anything out.

Today I had some time before Nathanael returned from his GORP trip, so I drove up to Tama. I bought him some corn tortillas at the Mexican store. I was going to go look at the old farm but I decided to do that some other time.

Nathanael's room is a triple. I still have not met either roommate though I briefly talked to one of them, Jay from New Delhi. Jeremy has still not arrived. The room is a big room with 2 smaller rooms adjoining. Nathanael and Jay each took an adjoining room. Jeremy gets the big room, though he has no privacy, because Jay and Nathanael have to walk through Jeremy's room to leave.

I'm here at Super 8 and the students and parents are pouring in for orientation tomorrow. There are still a few things I have to check on. Most of his orientation and all of his moving in is done, but I need to attend some things and so does he. He has gotten really involved in GORP, the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program....(I think that's what GORP stands for). He had a great time in Wisconsin. I'm sure he will detail everything on his blog tonight.

I bought him a few creature comforts neither he nor his dad thought of and got him started on laundry, which was badly needed. His shoes REEK and they are still unwashed. I hope he didn't forget his laundry...I better call and remind him....he forgets things like that.

I almost forgot to mention that I was SO happy to see Nathanael. I already missed him terribly. I have great grief taking my baby and dropping him off in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa. But then I am also happy he's a grown man now and is where he is supposed to be. I pray for him all the time. I will never stop doing that.