the land of corn and family

Good­ness, I’m sor­ry I’ve been so silent! I had some crazy idea that by leav­ing Lon­don where we were pulled in thou­sands of dif­fer­ent direc­tions, and arriv­ing in Amer­i­ca where we would… relax… I’d have more time to tell you all about what’s hap­pen­ing. But in real­i­ty, life got even busier here in Iowa than it was at home. Truly!

We arrived on Wednes­day last week to bright blue skies, warm lus­cious sum­mer­time air and the longed-for embrace of John’s moth­er and father. I have to tell you: I have been arriv­ing at one Iowa air­port or anoth­er now for 24 years, to per­fect sum­mer weath­er and the expec­ta­tion of sun, swim­ming, great food and my irre­place­able in-laws, and this arrival was no dif­fer­ent. Just bet­ter, if that’s pos­si­ble. Because this sum­mer we’re not tak­ing any­thing for granted.

Imag­ine you were loaned some­thing many years ago, some­thing you knew you liked and would enjoy hav­ing. You heard the word “loan” but you did­n’t real­ly think much about it, because the term of the loan was so long. And any­way, you did­n’t know back then how much you would come to trea­sure the thing. So the years went by as you got to appre­ci­ate your loan ever more, and enjoy its pres­ence in your life. It became a part of the beloved tapes­try of your days and years, always there to appre­ci­ate, always the same. You nev­er took it for grant­ed, but you did­n’t always take the time to eval­u­ate its worth to you, either. It pro­vid­ed one of the essen­tial spices of life.

Then the lender reap­peared, and said, “You remem­ber that was a loan, don’t you? And its term is due.” You are com­plete­ly unpre­pared. No, you did­n’t prop­er­ly remem­ber that you were only loaned this pre­cious thing. It has become quite some­thing you can­not live with­out. At first you find your­self in absolute unwill­ing­ness to play by the rules. You will keep this thing, no mat­ter what an ear­li­er agree­ment might have been. But in your heart you under­stand that these were the terms, and grad­u­al­ly you real­ize that giv­ing it back will become part of the fab­ric of your life as well. In this real­iza­tion, you exam­ine your heart, which has been quite lazy up until now, and you see very clear­ly the worth that this loan has had in your life, and you are thankful.

By some incred­i­ble reshuf­fling of the kalei­do­scope, then, the lender does not come back when you expect it. The loan is still with you, inex­plic­a­bly, the same as always, only larg­er than life now, all its qual­i­ties mag­ni­fied some­how, and set against a back­drop of a per­fect sum­mer evening, warm and wel­com­ing, safe and cozy. You don’t know how long it will last, but you find your­self word­less­ly thank­ful for the extra time, for how­ev­er long it lasts.

That’s what our time in Iowa has been like.

And it all began with the Gilbertville “Cor­ner­stone Tap”! There is no oth­er place like it, except all the pubs in Eng­land where have ven­tured in, know­ing we did­n’t real­ly belong, but want­i­ng to spend an evening with the locals, and hop­ing we did­n’t stick out too much. I first went to Gilbertville with John’s dad many years ago, to the Lock­er where you can order any cut of meat, in any quan­ti­ty, just for the ask­ing. I have a mys­te­ri­ous soft spot (con­sid­er­ing I’m rather squea­mish in many ways) for butch­ers. There’s some­thing about appre­ci­at­ing where your din­ner comes from, and appre­ci­at­ing the skill it takes to bring it to you, that warms my heart and makes me feel that it’s all right not to be veg­e­tar­i­an. I loved my first vis­it there, com­ing away with a stack of lus­cious loin lamb chops that rival any­thing Scot­land can pro­duce in the month of May. Mar­i­nat­ed with John’s moth­er’s gar­den rose­mary, lemon juice, olive oil and fresh black pep­per (nev­er salt lamb raw! it leech­es the juices), and then grilled to per­fec­tion. You can’t beat it.

But we were too hun­gry when we arrived to con­tem­plate cook­ing, so thank good­ness for the “Cor­ner­stone.” Grate­ful­ly, we sidled into the Tap and sat down to order a ten­der­loin. Before we could, how­ev­er, in marched John’s par­ents’ adored friends, sev­er­al sets of them and their kids, com­plete with “WEL­COME TO IOWA” signs! Total­ly heart­warm­ing! And could there be a more deli­cious pork ten­der­loin on the face of the earth? I don’t think so. Del­i­cate­ly bread­ed, huge­ly over­flow­ing the bun, piled with red onions, let­tuce and toma­toes. And you want to hear some­thing fun­ny? We drank the bar out of gin! And I think we ate every­thing they had. A glo­ri­ous per­fect evening that reflect­ed one of my favorite wed­ding toasts: “To friends who are fam­i­ly, and fam­i­ly who are friends.”

More soon! About the Bat Mitz­vah for our niece in Min­neapo­lis, and Avery’s… rad­i­cal hair­cut. I told you, we’ve been busy.