Jack Staring Out the Window. Cedar Rapids, Iowa 2021. Photograph by Jordan Gale Story Summary: When I talk about where I’m from, I often mention the brutal winters that seem to paralyze the American Midwest for months on end at the beginning and end of each year. Maybe it’s the early darkness or the bone-chilling wind. I try to describe the blinding landscape and how the bare sun reflects off frozen cornfields blanketed in endless sheets of snow. I tell people I don’t visit home because I can’t stand the winters. I’m never honest. I rarely admit that the thought of Iowa brings up my estranged mother and her addictions that shaped my family for years. I think about my 90‐year‐old grandmother whom I keep putting off calling, and the close friends who died far too young. Home stirs deep feelings of resentment and longing that defined my adolescence. For much of my young adult life, I felt trapped, and I took that anger out on the people closest to me. Now, when I return, those old emotions rise quickly. I fall back into familiar habits, maybe to avoid confronting my past or the circumstances many loved ones still face. For years, I dreamed of running away and never looking back. Yet this place and the people in these photographs ultimately shaped who I am today.