E.O. Schaub

A few nights ago a friend was over with her kids and the inevitable question arose once again: “So, how did you end up… here?”

If you move to the middle of nowhere, prepare to ask, and be asked, this question a lot- by people who live next door, by your friends and family, by the guy in the elevator, (you know, when you go to big, fancy cities where they have elevators.) I don’t imagine folks ask this question, in exactly this way, in say, Cleveland. It’s as if living in a town of a thousand or so inhabitants, where a substantial percentage are self-employed and/or working a multiplicity of jobs to piece together a livelihood is a sort of personal eccentricity along the lines of talking to the contents of your refrigerator or of keeping a monkey for a pet.

I suppose I could skip the rambling story, with its too-many details, and simply say: “Fate.” Or: “Luck.” Or, worse yet: “Destiny!”

Anything, anything but the usual story- blah blah blah, my parents came here on their honeymoon/my family came here for vacations/my future husband and I decided to get married here and whoops! Found The Perfect House in about ten seconds flat when we decided to look- no, not that. Continue reading A Familiar Question →