People live in the Midwest because there is a certain kind of beauty in watching things die. In the South, things die and grow all at once, in a kind of continuous cacophony of nature. In the middle states, things are born in the spring, grow in the summer, die in the fall, and all is a graveyard for the winter. Some people enjoy this; it is in their natures. Their genes resonate with the boom boom boom boom of the changing air, the cycle of scenes, the rich metaphor of weather patterns. For others, this chokes them; they need everlasting life. But the europeans, the folk in whose veins an understanding between them and death flows, they enjoy the battle. They feel in their bones that, while they might not live forever, they can live through death-of-the-land for many years, as a way to prove...something. I am not sure yet where I belong.