Country mouse

Just climbed the stairs to my el stop. It's morning, and the sun is shining in a straight shot from Lake Michigan 20 or so blocks down a major street onto our platform and right into my eyes. If I squint, I can see some skyline in front of an explosion of light. Chicago's skyline is awesome. For years it was the one thing that took my breath away when I would drive in from work in the suburbs or round the corner on Lake Shore Drive. Here lately I have to will myself to even look at it.

Anonyhub and I have talked about moving to the countryside for so long. We just didn't know where or when or how. Neither of us are self-starters, and that's putting it mildly. I certainly like being enveloped in the arms of a employer. I have a rebellious streak, but only to get attention. If I'm honest with you and myself, I'll admit that I feel safest and surest when I'm carrying out someone else's orders. I prefer to do my real living in secret. I'm an introvert born and bred, after all.

The point...is irrelevant, but somehow I got here from this: Chicago, the city, she has been good to me. Very, very good. But the siren song of the country never stopped calling and it's time to start heeding the call. To see another place for the first time and soak it all in. Chicago has been a feast for my eyes - the beautiful and the ugly - but not really for my senses. I spent a lot of energy shutting things out rather than letting them in. And I want to live where I can walk barefoot in the dirt and grass again. That act is a prayer and a meditation unto itself. So many of my friends are talking about doing this, about moving outside of the grid with their kids, trying their damnedest to tend house, grow vegetables, pursue those dreams that have been percolating for years. Just as the city was our calling 10 years ago, the house and the solitude is our calling now. Many of us have parents who did the same thing. Up and moved to Louisiana, or Canada. Tried to build a house with their bare hands and live simply. Most of them live in baby boomer houses in baby boomer suburbs now, but we can still learn a lot from what they did. Why they did it.