Everything's The Same. It's All Different.

For me, the feeling of home starts with that hard left turn north on 35 out of Des Moines heading for Minnesota. There are still hours of driving left, but I've driven this path before many times.  It's pretty much the same fields, lakes, trees, and sky. Names on signs bring back awareness of places not thought of in years but instantly recognized.

Funny about that, though. There was this one town name that popped into my mind upon waking a couple months back. I'd been dreaming about work again, needing to get to a place called Waseca. Of course I know the name. But my dreaming brain couldn't come up with a location, a route to get there. I discovered my waking brain couldn't either. I puzzled it over several times before the trip, never quite reaching the level of importance resulting in a quick Google search.

I found it today. I don't mean driving through it. The name was on a sign, saying Rochester was east, Waseca west at the exits for Hwy. 14. Of course! This meant we were nearing Owatonna, and Waseca was between it and Mankato. Very familiar stopping and passing-through territory, Mankato. Waseca, not so much. Think I actually set wheels in the place twice in my life. But the puzzle of "where" was solved. Of course, the puzzle of why my brain popped that name in my head remains.

Other place names appeared and were recognized, my sense of the greater map and the order laid out reemerged, settled in. The old world returned. Arizona can now sneak back into the recesses of don't-need-it-land for a few months.

The nearer to the Twin Cities we got, the more familiar the landmarks, the more filled in the brain map, the more awareness of differences settled in. It might be as simple as noting that pavement here was fresher than two years ago, yet over on this other stretch those two years had corroded the surface into more potholes, more road noise than last time I drove them. New buildings filled old spaces, old buildings got new colors. Traffic was routed differently, signs for detours made no sense. Why was 35E the detour for 35W? As I'd turned onto E at the Burnsville split, W was still very available and in heavy use, so it made no sense.

Some of it was memory gaps, like wondering whether I needed only one specific lane to stay in up ahead, or did I need to move over a lane now before it got congested? Did merging lanes come in from the right or left at certain places? I remember they changed it, but how? When was an extra lane added in another spot?

Closer to home it became jarring. Sure, lakes were in the same places, roads turned where they used to, fast food survived. Then details emerged. This used to be a different business, a video rental turned used car sales. OK, nobody rents videos these days. A bank had turned into a - uh, I drove by too fast to read the sign. A new housing development was going in where there had never been open space for one. Wait! They took out the old elementary school? For a development? Where the heck did they put the school? Here's a new roundabout in a badly needed spot where people regularly got killed trying to get onto the main highway. We fought for a light there for years but MNDOT always said no. Hooray!

Approaching home turf, there was suddenly a set of storage buildings here, a highway adjacent junkyard there, where the city had vehemently denied either of them a location before, doing our best to keep appearances inviting to new businesses with an actual tax base and possibility of employment of our residents. We had a planning commission with an actual plan and a council with gumption to set their collective foot down for looking forward. What had happened?

And how much did I need to care, turning into the same old driveway with the same trees lining it on both sides, still drooping enough to turn it into a tunnel. I see I had a job ahead pruning the new branches back like every other year so they don't scratch the cars as they go in and out. More kindling for the fire pit in the back, starter for the bonfires we so enjoy on warm summer nights, family gathered around, brats or marshmallows on roasting sticks, laughter, stories, hugs.  It's all different. Everything's the same. 

We're home.