The car is packed and ready to go.  It’s time, once again, to leave one life, one home, and one identity, and exchange it for another. 

I leave the sounds of home behind: the mixture of different languages spoken, my best friend’s laugh as we catch up on life, and the constant rumble of airplanes as their small outlines twinkle in the sky of a rising sun.  I leave the sights of home behind: houses and green lawns covering every inch of space in the neighborhood, frustrating, but manageable, lines of traffic, and the sloping roof of the house I grew up in, along with the pink rose bushes that line the front window. Most importantly, I leave behind my family and friends.  I leave all of this and more for Dubuque, Iowa.

For three hours, the car travels, making its way past large malls, weaving in and out of traffic and down twisting country roads.  The car continues to travel through small towns, until it hits the famous runway, the final stretch.  Highway 20 takes me to my second home in Dubuque, Iowa. A nervous knot arises in my stomach.  It’s time to exchange mind-sets: here are new sights and sounds to get used to, another group of people to love, assignments to worry about…a different life to navigate.

A car jutting out of the edge of a man-made cliff advertising a car dealership passes by in a blur as our car races alongside a freight train.  We appear to be going faster, increasing speed as if the curving ramp up ahead was a launch pad.  Hitting the ramp we fly across the river, suspended by man-made magic.  The river below sparkles like a sequined purse, while the trees wade on the flooded shore, creating a shady refuge for the bobbing birds and swimming fish.  To the north, another bridge crosses over the river like a large stich waiting to be pulled taut. Looking ahead, I see the rolling hills and bluffs of the city, some lying in shadow while others bathe in the sun, sprinkled with Church steeples.

I’ve found my way to a second home, Dubuque, a place I love and value for its sights, sounds, and people, just as much as I admire those of my original home.  Both places are extremely different, one man-made, the other natural, but one factor in my story remains the same: me.  It’s as if I’m the first-person narrator of my own story, my own author, and I have the power to move from world to world.  This portal between these worlds is the strip of Highway 20.  No matter what direction the road takes me, I’ll be home.