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there is something so beautiful & moving about mundane life in the midwest. what some might see as boring & repetitive i see as lush & bubbling with quiet life

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dekalb co, illinois, 2022

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x x x x

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blueberry fields forever

26 feb 2023 

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Plains III / IV / V

Canon T3i

5.20.2018

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western edge

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“ Dream House “ // Adam Kyle Jackson

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“I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew a free breath."

—Willa Cather, O Pioneers

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“To think of the Midwest as a whole as anything other than beautiful is to ignore the extraordinary power of the land. The lushness of the grass and trees in August, the roll of the hills (far less of the Midwest is flat than outsiders seem to imagine), the rich smell of soil, the evening sunlight over a field of wheat, or the crickets chirping at dusk on a residential street: All of it, it has always made me feel at peace. There is room to breathe, there is a realness of place. The seasons are extreme, but they pass and return, pass and return, and the world seems far steadier than it does from the vantage point of a coastal city. Certainly picturesque towns can be found in New England or California or the Pacific Northwest, but I can't shake the sense that they're too picturesque. On the East Coast, especially, these places seem to me aggressively quaint, unbecomingly smug, and even xenophobic, downright paranoid in their wariness of those who might somehow infringe upon the local charm. I suspect this wariness is tied to the high cost of real estate, the fear that there might not be enough space or money and what there is of both must be clung to and defended. The West Coast, I think, has a similar self-regard...and a beauty that I can't help seeing as show-offy. But the Midwest: It is quietly lovely, not preening with the need to have its attributes remarked on. It is the place I am calmest and most myself.”

Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife

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Finally, someone gets it.

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25 and still coming of age

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spring in the valley

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One of my favourite memories is fishing for catfish on the pier with my father. I don't think I caught more than a tree root, and when the mosquitos got too violent we went inside and watched the news.

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The colors of Indiana