The Journey Into Ohio

We drive and drive through rain and overcast skies, corn and wheat fields, small roads to avoid the toll road (80/90), through Illinois and Indiana, and eventually we get to Ohio, where we stop in Toledo at the public library and encounter a security guard who writes up a secret ticket for the truck and watches us out the window of the medieval library as we do a 360 in the parking lot before pulling out, attracting a whole audience of library staff; and later to Cleveland. On the drive to Cleveland, Sam and I are about to start listening to The Red Tent again when we get into a discussion about how it adds up as a feminist novel, which leads inevitably into biblical meets present day relationship conversation, and we never even get to the book on tape, gratefully so. We meet up with Ariel and Jeremy at Anne and Jennifer’s house where we will stay for the week, camped out on the third floor of a beautiful old house replete with porch and tall wooden staircase. The first night Sam goes to sleep and the rest of us stay up watching DVD documentaries and talking. This is what happens in Cleveland.