Before  today, I'd  never been  to Missouri.  I was  born in
Arizona  and lived  there until  I was  11 before  moving to
Oregon. I grew up in Oregon,  traveled a bit, came back, got
married, and lived  there until all my kids  were born. When
my last son was just a month old, we moved to Arizona, where
we spent  the last 10  years (half  in Phoenix, and  half in
Northeastern Arizona.)

Arizona and  Oregon are starkly different.  Certainly one is
somewhat brown while the other  is vibrantly green, but it's
more than that. Oregon has  a soft, easy, effortless beauty.
Life doesn't  have to  work or  strive or  fight; everything
grows without  effort, life is  bursting out of  every crack
and crevice.  You can  feel how  easy life  is in  Oregon, I
think, as long as you're not living too hard a life. You can
feel the ease of it.

Arizona is hard, harsh, and inhospitable. If you look around
you'll find  life, but it's  not like  the life you  find in
Oregon. Life in Arizona  only subsists with great deliberate
effort, striving  and fighting. The  same is true  for plant
life, animal life, and human  life; in Arizona, life must be
tenacious. This is beautiful. It is not an easy beauty, it's
a hard  one. It's the kind  of beauty that you  struggle for
and  with, that  makes  your muscles  taught  and your  skin
leathery.

Honestly, I can't say that I  enjoy one kind of the beauties
above  more  than  the  other. I  sincerely  appreciate  and
delight in both.  But as we drove into  Missouri today, from
Joplin  to  Springfield  just  as the  sun  was  setting,  I
realized  that it  has been  a long  time since  I felt  the
effortless and soft beauty. It  was a restful feeling, and I
think  I'm ready  for  it  right now  in  life. I'm  looking
forward  to  exploring  the  state  more,  and  to  possibly
purchasing a house here and  spending a few years. Only time
will  tell, as  only  time  can, but  for  now, I'm  looking
forward to it.