There is a land out there somewhere. Somewhere directly to the east of the redwoods. You hear people talk about it from time to time, like the old timers who moved up here in the "back to the land" movements of the `70s. To hear them talk, you would think there might, in fact, be a whole other world out here.

Now I know that those from the area may not believe in such nonsense. Most people don't even believe in Eureka. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I know. I am from one of those places over the foothills. I am from Iowa.

There are certain things to be said about being from the Midwest. People hear of it, and they look down to see if I have cow-shit on my boots. And when I don't, they then ask me if I eat a lot of potatoes. That's Idaho, moron.

It is interesting to me, the wholesomeness and goodness of the Midwest is perverted so unjustly in the minds of those who have never been there. We actually do have buildings. And not everyone who lives there lives on a farm. Though, to be fair, we all have a relative who does.

So I am on the hunt. I want to know where these ideas about my homeland come from. So I travel there, in my mind, and try to remember all the things that make me wishy-washy.

Pretend it is the summer, and that you are outside. Now pretend that you are the hottest you have ever been in your life, and that there is no relief from it besides going to your favorite swimming hole, and jumping in. That is Iowa. It gets so goddammed hot in the summer that things melt. And I don't mean Ice Cream cones, or candles. I mean people, and fire hydrants, and other things that under any normal circumstance would be upright. In the heat of an Iowa summer, everything wilts, including the CORN.

So what is the point then? This is where it becomes hard to explain. The point is the Thunderstorm that always follows these heat spells. One minute, you will be languishing out on the porch, the air still and wet with humidity. You are sticking to everything, and water evaporates before you can pour it over your head. And then, out of this unbearable still heat, a slight breeze will blow over the sweat on your face. You look up to the blue sky, the bright hot blue sky, and far off to the distance there is a little speck of a cloud.

The wind picks up, the sky darkens, and the little cloud becomes a huge thunderhead. Lightning crackles and charges the air with ozone. Thunder rattles the glass in the windows. The sky lets loose its hellish fury, and everybody goes outside to sit in the rain.

Now imagine it is winter, and the temperature hovers just slightly above zero. It is so cold out that your snot actually freezes inside your nose. Pretend it is somewhere in between December and January. The clouds are thick over the sky, but not thick like a summer storm cloud. These are thick like a down blanket, and it shines, because the moon in is back of it, reflecting the underside of the clouds and the snow already blanketing on frozen soil.

All of a sudden it warms up. This is the only time that you can actually feel the temperature jump 15 to 20 degrees. And you know this is going to happen for only one reason. The clouds are too full, and it has to be somewhere around 30 degrees for it to snow, and so for some unexplained reason, Iowa simply warms up, and it starts to snow. It snows big, huge chunks that filter slowly from the sky. In Iowa in the winter, when it snows at night, there is whiteness above and there is whiteness below, and in between, there is falling whiteness against a white background.

We have these bugs, way back home in Iowa that only come out in Indian summer. (That's the latter part of September through the last of October, when the air is crisp, and the leaves are starting to change, but it is still warm enough to go swimming.)

We call `em cicadas, though I am sure there is another name for them somewhere. And they sing. At night when the last of the heat is starting to fade from the ground, and you can sit outside comfortably in your shirtsleeves and not sweat, and you watch the dusk come up and the lightning bugs come out to twinkle in the deepening shadows, these cicadas sing to you, saying goodbye after being born in the late fall, growing throughout the winter and coming of age in the heat of the summer. They sing to you, in Iowa, where there is still cycles and seasons, before spreading their wings and flying away forever.

Yes, there is indeed a land out there. But I can't explain it. It's just my home. Maybe you should travel there yourself sometime. You'll see what I mean.