A Kansas Life

WICHITA, Kan. – How long have you been here in Kansas? How long have you worked at the paper?

I get asked these questions all the time. When you inquire for a living, people will turn the tables quite frequently. At the beginning, I was cagey about the answer. After all, I didn't want everyone knowing that it was only my third or 14th day on the job. By now, I've gotten to the point where the answer isn't completely embarrassing. Two months or ten weeks doesn't sound half bad. People assume I at least know where the copy machine is by now (although I can't get it to work more than half the time).

I've come to a point now where the idea that I can only live in Blue States or large coastal communities doesn't make much sense. There are places here I'm quite familiar with. The taco stand where I grab a torta pastol. The bar where I get a Wheat Boulevard. All of the QuikTrips where I purchase a variety of strange soda mixes, paid with a credit card. I've been to these places enough times to feel comfortable; like they are touchstones of my daily life.

The same is true with my apartment. It may be dirty, permanently smoky and have walls that let know exactly what my neighbor is viewing on T.V., but the other day I caught myself referring to it in conversation as "home." It was a pretty scary thought, but two months does seem enough time to put down roots. There's a reporter who joined the paper two weeks ago. She seems pretty settled now, already telling funny vignettes about run-ins with strange sources. Maybe I've been here that long, too.

The train of thought is dangerous, because it leads to more questions: Why do I live in such a dump? Why is there frequently violent crime in my neighborhood? I went to college so I could live here - I know people in Albany who didn't graduate high school living in better places.

Finding answers to these questions requires breaking the little illusion I've sometimes fostered in the last few weeks: Wichita isn't really home. In fact, it won't be terribly long before I break out of here. Perhaps the reason that I haven't put down roots in the ways the new reporter at the paper has is that I know that my ticket out of here is visibly on the horizon. I'm not in countdown mode yet, but there's no point in calling myself a Kansan when it's almost time to pack my bags.