Tag: New England

I live in a house in the country. I’ve lived here for 4 years now.

The people are friendly. I have never felt so comfortable to participate in conversations as I do here. The conversational pace is slow enough that my introvert-standard split-second processing pause before I speak doesn’t ace me out of the craic every time, just maybe about half the time. It may seem counterintuitive, since there are so many more things to be a part of in the cities and towns I’ve lived in before, but I feel more a part of things here. I’m still an introvert, and that will never change, but the personal battery doesn’t drain as much in a crowd here.

The light is gorgeous around my house. It’s strange. Is this a byproduct of cleaner air? Perhaps. There is a more crystalline, more buttery aspect to the light, a kind of radiance that I find soothing and wondrous. I feel attached to the environment here. I have a large yard that needs maintenance (which I’m only OK at attending to, it must be said) but it pays dividends in many ways. The many beautiful shades and hues of green, the flowers — some planted by previous residents here, some volunteers/wildflowers, some we’ve planted ourselves — that one can see from every one of the many windows in this house, the purity of the snow as it hugs the ground, never going black, never taking on the smoke and cinders and road filth the stuff always did in the city, the open space… it all speaks to some kind of elevated daily existence.

And that’s not to say that life is perfect. Nope, nope, nope. I don’t have a place to go walking here. There are no sidewalks. If I want to go for a walk, I have to either risk the traffic along Main Rd. (which is not insignificant, and some people drive through here at well above the speed limit) or get in the car and drive 5 miles to find a place to walk. Either way, it’s inconvenient, and as a result I’ve put on a fair amount of weight. My life is far too sedentary.

But this is a problem that I can address, and will. And if I can manage that much, I believe my life “out here” will be all the better for the extra effort, and that there may be some unexpected benefits to go along with it. One idea I’ve had to make these benefits manifest is to do some nature journaling. I’ve done it before. It’s been fun and it’s taught me stuff about the natural world and about myself.

So, yeah.

I love it here. In the places I can see from my window and in this beautiful crooked little house, life is sweet.

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