Life after

 

I just returned to Madrid, so here are some thought on my month in Ohio. It was a difficult but productive month. I was so glad that I could spend time with my mother, both just to keep her company and to help with the many administrative tasks that come with a death. By the time I left, I felt like all the time-sensitive financial and bureucratic processes were nearly done, and now there´s the long process of grieving and figuring out what life looks like after a loss.

Grief makes me exhausted, and I did not have energy for socializing or studying language or exercise. I did try to do some walking, just because that gets me outside and not stuck in front of a computer or in a car (which is where I was for hours every day). My parents´ property includes 20 acres of woods, but the ticks were especially bad this year, so I mainly stuck to the road. Since the Midwest is laid out in 1-mile increments, I could walk the "section" bounded by the road and get a nice 4-mile (7 km) walk. There´s no other pedestrians, and luckily not too much traffic, since you need to be ready to jump in a ditch if a car drives by and hasn´t seen you. Amish horse-drawn buggies abound too, but I always crossed over to the other side for them. So I got some nice views of farms with goats, horses and cows, but also the occasional groundhog or deer. I will miss all the nature, but not all the driving, that comes along with a life in the country.