The excitement that June brings – the end of school, planning summer trips and outdoor activities – is also a time of reflection for me. It’s the month of my birthday and what I’ve come to call my moving to Minneapolis-iversary. This week marks 25 years since I loaded up a rented cargo van with my earthly possessions (and two kittens), moving the hopes and dreams for my adult life into an ill-fated apartment on Columbus Ave and 18th St.

As my therapist says, mid-life is a time of taking stock of unrealized dreams and looking with learned wisdom at the potential of the future. I see in hindsight pieces comprising a rich life: love and heartbreak, losses and triumphs, attempts at grace and acceptance.

I’ve lived for 15 years now a few miles south of my first Minneapolis address (with a handful of other residences in between) in a place that still feels like home. The picture I chose for my Mpls-iversary post is the Louisa County (Iowa) fair queen in Columbus Junction. It sums up my thoughts on 25 years in Minneapolis: Sometimes my pie wins and sometimes it doesn’t. In either case, I still like to make pie.