Crazy for Cleveland
Ben has lots of random crazy ideas that I frankly have to shut down at their conception. Several weeks ago, he characteristically had a new one:
“Hey, want to move to Cleveland?”
On our very first date he pre-screened me by asking me what I thought of his undying ambition to settle in the American West. And here we have been since 2011.
“Hey, want to move to Cleveland?” he asked.
“Um. Sure. Yeah, let’s look into that,” I replied.
I’ve never even BEEN to Ohio. Or driven through it. Or flown over it.
But, looking into it, “on paper” (that is, the internet) it checks all the boxes. Except cloudy long winters. But this year’s fire season so thoroughly blotted out the sun for two months that I came thisclose to buying a light therapy lamp, and even my kid’s chipper, guitar-playing, singing principal posted for all to see that he was having a really hard time with all that darkness.
I look at the eerie pink sky and my infant snoozing in our stroller, and I need a better life for him.
If I need a light therapy lamp and allergy medicine, by all means let it be from nature doing its thing and not from my world burning. It will feel so much less apocalyptic. I know climate change is gonna get everyone, but I can outrun the worst of it for a bit and care without beinng oppressively reminded of its effects every minute of every day for months at a time every year.
So yeah. Cleveland?? We’d be there scoping it out if not for Covid. At least the sun shone clear and bright this past weekend. I forgot how bright the sun was. Our Air Quality Index reached “good” for the first time since.... I don’t know. Long long time ago. It was a refreshing weekend. I’m thankful for the respite.