The Great Spring by Natalie Goldberg

Author:Natalie Goldberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

11

Iowa

The plane drops down into Cedar Rapids and the snow is falling thick and at an angle. The flight attendant announces it is eighteen degrees. Monday, February 11. The next day my new book Old Friend from Far Away will be on sale and I will read at the independent Prairie Lights bookstore. The publisher has forgotten to assign an escort or tell me how to get from the airport to the Sheraton in Iowa City, thirty miles away.

I explain this to the woman sitting next to me. She has high heels and thick legs, is wearing nylons and a black skirt. She tells me that she and her husband are driving to the Quad Cities, and they can drop me off. Her big husband in the next seat says nothing.

“If you don’t mind,” I say, looking straight at him. He looks ahead.

The alternative is to grab a shuttle, which I learn in the terminal won’t be running for an hour. There’s a blizzard outside.

I ask the woman to watch my bag as I go out to a yellow cab.

“Seventy-five dollars,” he tells me. I look in the cab at his long stringy hair and very big belly. “Nope, too much,” I say, and go back through the electric door.

“I’ll get the car,” the thick-legged woman says, and walks off into the blizzard in her heels.

Her husband is in khakis and a straw hat. They have just returned from Mexico, and he is not ready to bundle up.

We wait a long time. “I think she can’t get the car started,” he says.

I see another yellow cab, grab my suitcase, and take my chance. “Iowa City?” I hop in with a college girl and we split the fare.

What am I doing here in the middle of winter?

As we pull onto the highway, I remember: the Midwest.

The tires are bald, but the driver is fearless. He says he knows snow, and I believe him. The white of the sky reaches down to the white of the land, broken on the horizon here and there by a few bare trees. I can’t help it—I love this place. Barren and beautiful.

The cab drives down a rutted alley and swings in front of my hotel. The bellboy in a navy-blue overcoat that’s way too big for him steps out to take my luggage.

I move quickly into the revolving door, then stop. I swivel my head. “How old are you?”

“I’m older than I look—twenty-two.”

“You can vote?”

Everything is distilled down to that these days. Obama had won this state in the primaries a few weeks earlier. I watch political coverage on television now, want a glance of Hillary’s daughter, of Barack’s wife, Michelle. “So who’d you pick?” It’s not American to ask, I know. Voting should be a private thing.

“I didn’t.”

“Please,” I say. “You don’t want a Republican again?”

He’s not sure; I can see it in his face. Then he takes a leap. “Oh, no, ma’am.”

“Promise me you’ll vote on election day.”

He promises. I give him a dollar for bringing up my bags—I should have given him two.

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