The National - Blood Buzz Ohio

I’m completely addicted to this song right now. There’s something about the stories of those of us who have left Ohio to come to New York that strikes at my heart. The ever-lingering, controversial question of returning, our hearts torn in two. This is a song about fleeing Ohio, but like I said in a previous post, it’s a song that sounds just like Ohio to me. Like they could never let it go. Though I completely understand if it sounds like England, or Oklahoma, or California to you.

This is all coming up because I’m reading a lot of Dawn Powell, who notoriously turned her back on an unpleasant childhood in Ohio (her stepmother threw her manuscripts in the fire, telling her not to waste her time) for a writing career in New York, and yet seemed to struggle with aspects of New York life even when she loved it so much more than she could ever love Ohio.

But I had a happy childhood. How could I ever love this place - where I so often feel like *I’m* being thrown into the fireplace - more than I love Ohio?

What was it I came here to find?

(I’m trying to ignore the fact that all their New York shows are sold out and they’re not even playing Cincinnati. It just makes my heart hurt more.)