Coming Back<br >It was early spring in Cloud County， Kansas. My friend Ann and<br >I， on our way across the country， had stopped in the town of"<br >Clyde to visit her old Uncle Earl. From the house in town where<br >we stayed， we drove with Earl out to the farm that had been his<br >home for most of his life. There we explored the abandoned farm-<br >house， and l climbed partway up the flame of the windmill to<br >look out across the new wheat flowing in the fields， a tide of short，<br >bright-green bladcs whipped into ripples and torrents by the<br >wind.<br > Back in town， we ate in the cafes and stood on corners talking<br >to neighbors， and in the midst of this homely activity I was sur-<br >prised to find the cxpcricncc of my oxen midwcstern past arising<br >in Inc. At moments I was caught in wondering sadness， then lifted<br >by joy that had nothing to do with the circumstances， or held in a<br >listening that sharpened my senses ahnost to the point of pain.<br >This awakening I had not anticipated， for my native Ohio is situ-<br >ated in a difffrcnt kind of Midwest than this prairie state of Kan-<br >sas. But the people of Clyde were known to me; the land， the<br >smells， the thousand details of ordinary life were familiar. For the<br >first time in twenty years I felt drawn to the region of my growing<br >up.<br > That powerful pull aroused my memory of leaving the Mid-<br >west so long ago. I recalled how， by the age of sixteen， I had<br >longed to escape to New York City. It was the "navel of the<br >world，" I thought， where I would learn life s secrets and become a<br >writer. I suffocated in my parents house on the outskirts of a<br >