The noodles of home? and desiccating earthworms

While I was in Kansas (a mere month ago? It feels like ages and ages. In Lawrence I sneezed all the time in the sickness that was the predecessor to the shared fever and cough inducing cold that turned into the nasty sinus infection I'm ridding myself of now.) I ate at Noodles and Company with SalSis and my MiL.

SalSis had told me about the existence of several new noodles restaurants in Lawrence. I was excited to try them and was initially disappointed when I learned that one was Noodles and Company, part of chain that I'd eaten at many times in Denver.

In the spirit of noodle exploration, we still ate there, and I am pleased to report that the noodles we sampled were all fairly priced and tasty. Nothing was extraordinary, but I'd happily go back.*

To me, the interesting thing is my reaction. When I saw the Noodles and Company sign as we approached, I almost whined, "but we go to lunch at Noodles and Company all time." Then it struck me that it had been ten years since I worked in Denver and ate lunch at Noodles and Company. I had probably not given the chain any thought since I first started eating with SalSis, nine years ago, or met the Mister, much less his mother. There's not a spaghetti and meatball Italian restaurant within 35 miles of where I live now, much less a super-fresh cosmopolitan noodle shop. I see SalSis about twice a year. We don't eat at Noodles and Company all the time.

For a moment, though, working near downtown Denver and rushing out for lunch still seemed like the norm for my life. I still felt like an 8-5 working person. Denver still felt like home.

My upcoming move has started me thinking about "home" and who I am. Even though I was not born there and haven't lived there for ten years, Colorado is my home and probably always will be. I miss "my mountain", my family and not seeing the changing of the season in our garden. But I don't belong in downtown Denver rushing to a crowded noodle shop over my lunch hour. I cringe every time I try to drive from my parent's suburban house to the nearby retail strips and wonder how I could have ever fit in there.** If I don't belong, how can it be home?

Yet sometimes I feel too hip? too urban? too yuppie? too something for my rural West Virginia town. I want to be able to buy fresh produce and have a choice of more than two kinds of sparkling wine. I'd like to be in a yoga class and recycle on my curbside. I'd like not to be the only stroller-pusher on the street. Heck, I'd like to have sidewalks so I don't have to push my stroller on the street. But I love my freedom lawn and living in a neighborhood with mostly freedom lawns. I love that having styled, highlighted, hair is not the norm. I love my walk to work and the daily changes I see in the color on the hillsides. I like that I consider the forty-plus vultures that hang out behind our house to be a wonderful sign of spring. If I had a "yard list" (serious birders have life lists, state lists, county lists and a yard list), I'd be ecstatic that I could count a pileated woodpecker on it. Many parts of me fit here. It's home. Or part of my home. But not where I belong either.

So, before I spend any more time on this (I should be grading and Neil Diamond has said it much better, before I was born***), I'll ask, what's home to you? What noodles are there?

*While Salsis was happy with her choice while it was fresh, she reports that cold leftover soba noodles lack any appeal. More precisely, "the leftover cold soba noodles remind me of large stiffening earthworks desiccating on the sidewalk."

**More about the stigma of the best high school in the country soon.

***"L.A.'s fine but it ain't home. Brooklyn's home but it ain't mine no more." I am I said, 1971.