Ave, Patria

This past week I've been back home in the Quad Cities. After waiting months to get back, keeping this return in mind as my goal throughout all the busi-ness of graduate study, I must say it's a bit disappointing in some ways. Places change, even in a few months' time. Trees are cut down; concrete is poured. Even the potato soup at the Belgian Village was rather sub-par yesterday (though I remain hopeful that the clam chowder will be good this weekend). We nostalgize places, and they disappoint. People, it is true, can also disappoint; but so far they haven't. It has been reuniting with friends that has been most rewarding about this homecoming.

I'm still not entirely certain what one's relationship to a place should be. One can admire a place. But should one claim to love a place? I know that this particular corner of Illinois/Iowa is not the greatest place in the world, except by virtue of it being mine, and of me being its. "We admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons", Chesterton reminds us. I sometimes wonder whether love ought be reserved for people: only the heartless choose their friends with reason, and families are of course beyond one's choice. But then, our homeland (patria, a fine Latin word: the land of one's fathers) is also given us. Only those few born in a place like Vienna, or Madison, or Moab, can love their place for reasons. The rest of us, born in a world of places that are indeed quite mediocre when judged by their objective merit, must love our place without reasons.

In any case, it's good to be home.