Wyandotte

This is my favorite street in Kansas City. Wyandotte. It is my favorite because I am convinced none of the other streets want me to learn their names. For example, Broadway becomes Penn Valley Parkway becomes West Pennway then back to Broadway. But Wyandotte is my oasis. It stays the same all the way through the mess of downtown. I still haven't learned what streets cross Wyandotte where or if it's really even the street I need to get to my destination, but every time I see those white letters against the green, it makes me happy. I think it's because it's one of the few streets I recognize, one of the few I am becoming familiar with. For most of my life I have thought of nothing but moving away from my home town. Of getting out and exploring the world. Of living in downtown lofts or nestled against a mountain. I do love to travel. Like any good college graduate, my first order of business was to hop on a plane and fly to Europe. Given the opportunity I would go back in a heartbeat. Oh to explore the streets of a new city, there's nothing more electric. But, there's something to be said about the familiar. About knowing the names of the streets, the shortcuts from one neighborhood to another, the closest coffee house, and the worst traffic spots. It's the love of the familiar that lands me in Target at least three times a week. No matter where in the U.S. I go, Target is my beacon of home. I know that the Target in Tulsa or Kansas City or L.A. or Minneapolis will have that same feeling, like at any moment I could turn around and see Mom picking up some shirt she thinks I would love but I would never even try on, even though she's a state away. Familiar. Family. We love the things that are close to us, that we know without even thinking. All this to say that on this adventure in a new place, I love it. Really I do. But it's so nice to know that when I'm away from home, away from the friends and family and places I know without even thinking, that there's a Wyandotte.