I miss LaGrange. Writing this two weeks since I moved to Iowa, I still have boxes to unpack and many pictures to hang. My clothing and bathroom and accessory accoutrements still in desperate need for order and routine, I have been going to work since July 6 at Iowa Wesleyan College.

After 13 years at LaGrange College, I’m the New Person on campus. And there is much to do. And with nowhere near the financial resources, which poses both challenge and intellectual stimulation. I’m leveraging my 30 years of administrative experience with an amalgam of good people here, their earnest desire to make this college better, with the reality of a small endowment and fiscal restraint.

If there is one word to describe a move, I guess it’s grueling. Emotionally, physically, mentally, a decision must be made about every item you own. I dumped, I donated, I found homes for appliances and other items that just weren’t worth moving to Iowa. I left a beloved outdoor cat in the care of the woman who assumed both his as well as the tending of my beloved house on Gordon Street. It was my dream house when I bought it and it’s the nicest home I’ve ever lived in.

Grueling also describes the 15-hour drive with two dogs, a dear friend following behind me with three sedated cats in crates. All did fine and are adjusting well. As am I.

Iowa is a land of expansive cornfields, straight wide roads, indiscernible accents and endless sky. Iowa at sunset is light and color, color and light. As the light fades the only thing large enough to replace it is the span of the land itself. It’s just beautiful.

Here in the southeast corner of the state, I’ve been to Burlington a few times, just a straight 30-minute shot east. Ebbing and flexing its might, the Mississippi River is still coursing as the main artery of the nation. You can eat lunch in Burlington and consider the unending power of the river. I saw tugboats pushing several barges of coal up against the strong current, brown water resisting but yielding to the constant commerce up and down its spine. The legendary Mississippi is a staple of American lore and the entry point to our frontier, settled long ago by people of strong bodies and even stronger wills.

I miss LaGrange. I miss the two blocks of Gordon Street off Broad, resplendent with blooms of varying types nearly every month of the year. I miss Gus’ Grill and Hog Heaven, particularly my two-scrambled-egg breakfasts with Charles Smith. I miss Harold Lawrence’s sermons. I may not be a model Methodist, but I know a good sermon when I hear one and Harold’s are superb. I miss taking Lollie Love to church and although I’m making frequent phone calls to my 93-year-old friend, I miss my brief daily visits with her as well.

I miss my friends there, most who are with the college but several others who fleshed out my time there with good humor and perspective. I miss how easy it was to be able to pick up my office phone and dial any four-digit number I needed by memory, to know every name on the phone list if I had needed it, and what it was like to know the entire college’s organizational chart by name. I miss so many people at the college and in town, the column would end with a long list of names, but I think about them a lot.

Sometimes you have to make yourself hurt in order to change and grow. Like digging around after a splinter in the fleshy part of your thumb, you weigh whether it’s less painful to just leave it alone or continue to wince as you focus your efforts on finally being able to grasp it and pull it out. Self-imposed change is arguably the hardest of all. It’s also the test of human resilience. Much good work needs doing here.

The winter will be long and cold, although there will also be days of sunny brilliance. And then spring will come, yielding the explosive green surge of the heartland. By the time I write again, the first frost will have occurred and the new academic year will be under way. Seasons are distinct here, no subtle shifts from warm to less warm.

Be well and do good work, with best wishes from Iowa.