Nostalgia is a strange sensation. It can be sparked by anything from a place to a song or even a smell. To this day, a whiff of a certain artificial watermelon scent transports me back to age 7(ish), digging through the top drawer of our china cabinet in the kitchen which always seemed to house an antique gold finish tin of watermelon lip balm. It’s bizarre how life can suddenly feel “less” without items that I don’t remember forgetting, let alone missing. It can catch you off-guard.

Having only been away for three years, I didn’t expect these sensations to strike on my first summer visit back to Indiana since my move. And yet, the night I arrived, I was walking to pick up pizza with Amy and I noticed a glow. The lightning bugs were just starting to make their appearance in the dusk. Soon, they were all around and one landed on Amy’s hand. Suddenly, I was a little girl running around the backyard trying to hold these little creatures in my hand to marvel at their glowing bodies. A part of me wanted to cry at how happy I felt having them surround me. It was a wonderful feeling to have back what I hadn’t consciously realized I missed.

The next morning, the cutest thing happened. Amy & Fi came downstairs and Fi was happily going about her energetic morning routine, until I said “hi” from the couch. She froze in her tracks and turned like she’d been caught stealing candy. We cracked up. I spent the rest of the day talking with Amy and helping bake a birthday cake for Adam. It was perfectly chill.

We spent the night at Scott & Steph’s. I barely knew them before I moved away, but somehow from 2,500 miles away, they’ve become two of my favorites! Scott gave a tour of their brewing setup and garden. Somehow I’m friends with highly motivated people but none of that rubs off on me. Anyway, I couldn’t have planned a better way to see all my friends. We had 5 dogs running around the yard and a vintage projection screen was setup outside for our viewing of Back to the Future. Naturally, Scott & Alex planned some elaborate introduction for the whole thing…I wish I could remember who filmed that… With a background of lightning bugs in the surrounding field and snacks in-hand, it was the perfect night. We all started tweeting about the experience in a futile attempt to make it the trending topic on Twitter hehe. Nerds.

I slept on the couch in the basement and was awoken in the middle of the night by footsteps on my body. There was definitely a moment of panic, but soon I heard purring. Apparently a cat had been shut-in with me. She curled up beside me and I fell back asleep. (I wish I could remember the crazy dream I had. I remember sharing it in the morning because it was so absurd. I think my brain had tried to communicate the presence of the cat by casting it as a crazy robot or something.) I was feeling spoiled by all the 4-legged attention. I became best friends with their boxer the following morning while we watched the premiere of Wilfred (loved it, btw). We finally decided we should leave the house, so a trip to Chick-filet was in order before hitting up an antique mall. We didn’t get far before the children lost patience with the whole thing. We were all kind of tired.

A nap was in order before Amy & I headed out for the night. We started with dinner at Saffron Cafe. I had an amazing lamb tajine, with the sweetness of prunes, apricots, pears, & cinnamon. It was so delicious and the atmosphere was so pretty with the stacks of tajines and colored glass fixtures. The sitar player right behind us completed the greatness.

We split the rest of the night between two spots. First, we had a table by the open window at Ball & Biscuit, a vintage meets modern lounge where we each had a cocktail containing St. Germaine Elderflower Liqueur. It was new since I moved. We closed the evening at an old favorite, The Rathskellar, where a cover band played on the outdoor stage. We just enjoyed the still-warm weather and talked until we decided we were tired. A hilarious foot story happened in the midst, but I’ve promised not to speak of it.

The next morning I hit the road for home for a Father’s day lunch. Kyle brought over his girlfriend’s 3-pound yorkie poo, Harley, which seemed even tinier in context of the pitbull and bull terrier also running around. I convinced Kyle to let me puppy sit for the afternoon. Harley & I became great friends. I realized if I had a dog her size, my landlord would never be the wiser. Dad took me over to the farm to fetch the 4-wheeler, which I rode around the farm and back over to the house, cutting back to our cabin in the woods. The ride in the woods was a bit treacherous, crossing creeks and climbing eroded hills, but naturally, so much fun.

When I got back to the house, I took Harley to play outside. She looks a bit like a rabbit when she runs with her small frame and big ears. She wore me out. We walked all around the house and had some attempted games of fetch. She never quite mastered the bringing it back part. I couldn’t believe how fast she moved (see video below). It was pretty hilarious. She was such a good dog. Didn’t bark and just followed me around. I was sad when she had to go home, but Kyle did bring over his pitbull, Milo, who immediately clambered up on the chair with me. He was always my favorite, the 70lb lap dog.

I spent most of the next morning looking for things in my old room and (sadly) realizing items were missing. I talked to my dad’s girlfriend for a couple hours before helping prep lunch. She’s nice and it was good to finally have a chance to get to know her. In the afternoon I headed to Carmel to fetch Adam from work. We had dinner along The Monon at Detour. It was a pleasant evening, so we popped across the way to Bub’s for some birthday cake flavored ice cream cones and walked down The Monon. We checked out some real estate and laughed at how people must have assumed we were on a date or possibly newlyweds looking for a home hehe. It would have been a great date! He started a fire on the deck when we got back and we just talked into the night.

I met up with Adam & Rachel for lunch the next day over at Fort Ben. I got a tour of Adam’s workplace, Midwest Studios. I believe it was the old water treatment building. It was such a beautiful space (photo) and cool to see the prototyping machines and workshops. It seemed like such a fun place to work.

I dropped my clarinet off that afternoon to get it restored to playing condition (now, if only I could track down my sheet music). Then I met up with Mitch for a quick drink at Granite City. I had a tasty Hypno Cosmo. He ordered a pitcher of stout…for himself. It made financial sense haha. Always an adventure with that guy. Rachel hosted a dinner party that night, which worked out beautifully. I finally got to see Eric & Liz and baby Emma. We had some good laughs and we wound down the night by watching Secretariat (of course, I’m game for a horse movie!). And somehow, it was already my last night in Indiana.

I stopped for a visit with Patty before lunch, since Tyler was in Ukraine and I needed to see some member of the family! It so happened that I perfectly timed getting lunch with Adam & Andy at Pizza Hut buffet (oh, the memories there). Before I knew it, I was pulling into the airport and my whirlwind perfection of a visit was coming to an end.

The whole trip made me homesick, of course. It was nice being able to hop from place to place without worrying about finding (safe) parking or waiting for a bus. It was amazing just being able to sit outside in the evenings and talk. I had to remind myself that I was on vacation and if I lived there, I would have a job and stress and I wouldn’t be able to see friends everyday. Still, it’s nice to be somewhere you feel at home (and hang out with 9 different dogs!).

The Midwest will always be the best in my heart.

It’s actually the year of the rabbit, but I can’t imagine adventures centered around rabbits being much of a thrill ride. Anyway, work is still insane, but at least the rest of my life is off to a good start this month. I had a first date midweek that went surprisingly well, which included the best pork chop (smothered in apple & cranberry compote & served with mashed sweet potatoes) I’ve ever had. If work allows, I may actually have a second date in the works. I accept new jobs more often than I accept second dates so this is kind of a big deal…I guess.

This week I officially reserved my spot at a ranch in Montana for the fall. In prep for the trip, I started my first horseback riding lesson today. I arrived 30 minutes early (because I’m like that when nervous) which left plenty time to browse the grounds. It felt like heaven from the moment I opened my car door. I changed into my riding boots and immediately breathed in the smell of fresh hay & manure melted in the muggy air. For a second, I thought I was back home on the farm. Smells are crazy like that. It was instantly relaxing. I walked around to each horse and petted any that meandered close enough. My first thought was, “I forgot horses were *this* big.” The more I did comparisons between the size of their features vs mine (their head being the size of my entire torso area, for instance), the more I started psyching myself out on the whole idea. To shut up my brain, I looked around the amazing setting of grass-covered hills and marveled at these magnificent animals. (And there were a bunch of quail scooting about through the paddocks which added +10 awesome.)

I fell in love with the above horse immediately. He was beautiful and likely way bigger than I would ever be comfortable riding. I think he’s a Morgan. He wasn’t all that social which just added to his appeal ;) It reminded me of walking through the stables at the county fair, taking in the different personalities of each horse and memorizing all their names. Any fears I had were shadowed by how happy I was to be around these animals and all the years I’d wondered what it was like to ride them.

This guy was hilarious. He was totally “in your face”. He seemed to hope my iphone was a snack. I was really made for a life consisting entirely of non-human mammals. I love trying to connect with them and time in their presence flies by.

Today’s lesson was mostly an orientation. The instructors are a husband/wife duo. They’re Irish and seem to be 55-65 in age. They’re an entertaining pair, but both genuinely interested in teaching, seemingly blessed with patience and good spirits. My class consists of 5 females. One of them seemed to be about my age and the other 3 are mid-40’s/50’s. They’re all very nice and encouraging…no egos at play, which is refreshing. I’m the only one with no riding experience and so in the small bit we did today, it was encouraging to feel like I was able to keep up. We went through the basics of approaching the horse and grooming, as well as touring the tack room and getting down the lingo.

We spent the last 20 min or so of the lesson learning about mounting/dismounting. The following basically sums up the neurosis of my personality but I was less afraid of falling off or being kicked by a horse than I was of being unable to pull myself up on to the saddle. *cough* pride *cough* We were using English saddles which don’t have the little “handle” but they at least had us start by using a step. I was the last one to go and so I watched one-by-one as each woman approached the horse with a look on her face that implied she was about to jump in a snake pit. The first woman took a series of deep breaths and yelped an “Oh shit!” once she actually got on. Recall. All of these women had ridden at some point in their lives. Their reactions were not reassuring. The woman right before me lost her balance and fell on the step. Thus, I mentally prepared myself for wiping out.

So, I stuck my foot in the stirrup, grabbed the reins and some hair with one hand and the saddle with the other, whispered some kind of “sink or swim” motivating words to myself, and went for it. Success! Got it on my first try. I attribute my year of biking to being able to keep my balance, because that really was the key. I thought it would require more strength but the trickiest part was not swiveling the wrong way in the stirrup.

They walked us around in a circle so we could start to get a feel for how the horse moved. That was the most amazing thing to me…I didn’t expect to be moved around so much. They made us keep our feet dangling and I was convinced I was going to slide off. Since I was the last one, I had to sit on the horse while he talked to wrap up the session and the horse kept nudging at the guy. And even though it was just his head moving, it made me feel extremely unsettled atop him. My brain was thinking, “this guy is going to be mid-sentence when he hears me crash to the ground.” I gripped the saddle for dear life and finally tried petting the horse a bit, hoping he would chill out. It seemed to help a little bit. It was cool how each of us cheered for the other after each successful mount/dismount. As the instructor stated, group lessons can actually be better because you get to watch other people and we can help/support each other.

I should document the first horse I technically “rode”. His name was Casino and I think he is a Paint. He was probably only about 5-7 hands but I still felt like I was so high up. It was magnificent. I imagined how in a few months I’d be sitting on a horse like this taking in the views of Montana. (Cue excitement.)

Seriously, that 10 min span of time where I was able to pop myself on top of that horse and stay there brought a whole new meaning to the phrase, “get back on the horse”. It was so empowering. That 10 min equaled (if not surpassed) the impact of my cross-country drive. It was full of “fuck yeah, go me!” These lessons were pretty expensive so my biggest fear was that I would regret the experience. But no regrets. Anything but. All of us left really excited for the next lesson!

Afterward, I met up with Sallie in Sausalito (after 3 years, I’d never been!). We had lunch at this great place, Bar Boccee. I can’t believe I didn’t snap any photos. It was nestled right on the water and lots of boats were out for a sail. We ate on the patio which had a firepit and bocce court. The pizza was amazing and reminded me of my favorite pizza at Macaroni Grill. It was a great time and something we had always talked about doing but had just never scheduled it. So, that’s the second perk of my lessons…I’ll be forced to leave the city for 9 more days. I’d like to spend afternoons exploring Marin more. I might carpool with another lady some days, so that won’t always be an option, but either way just being at the stables is going to be recharging/therapeutic on its own.