Sunday, May 18, 2008

Insight...




Woweee it has been at least four or five days since I actually took the time to sit down, and try and make a post or two - I have had several Oxycodone induced starts and fits (as my wife's supply of painkillers wains, my ability to write inversely increases) - but this morning, I think I can sit down and actually write a few lines about my week, my day, my whatever...

Places to live - I have lived lots of places, Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Jacksonville, San Diego, Orlando, and I am sure I am missing a few - I was just commenting this morning on how our neighborhood has become a suburban nightmare of kitschy little shops and specialty stores in nicely designed "Walks" (the new word for really fancy strip malls) - and how much I long to move further out from this development back into a three acre spot in the woods - that's very easy for me to say, I travel, so I only spend the weekends here, so isolating my family to the woods would be an unfair thing to do -

Places I have visited - there are many places I have visited -- too many to name, and everyone of them has some sort of special thing about it. I am not too sure of where I would live given the choice, but I think it would have to either be really, really busy (i.e. New York or Los Angeles) or really, really slow (i.e. Green Cove Springs or Wakulla Springs) - one of my favorite things to do in Louisiana when I worked for the railroad was to drive the line - it was Highway 71, which was built on old roadbed from a railroad long since gone away, and the railroad I worked for paralleled the highway. I would drive through the center of these towns and look at the old Antebellum homes, and you know at one time the town doctor, the judge, the hardware store owner, the school teacher all lived in the two story white houses that were hidden behind oak trees and spanish moss and black cast iron fences. Every once in a while I would see a for sale sign, and stop, and wonder if the price was worth it - it's hard to find solace in a planned community - mostly what you find is a short walk to the grocery, people who pretty much look the same, and yards perfectly manicured to reflect the attitude of the homeowner's association. I think you find solace in an old wooden framed house on three or four acres, where you battle the termites and the irish plaster and the weeds and the hornets nests and the old chipping paint, and you create a homestead - maybe one with sunflowers growing under the kitchen windows, and gardenias in the front - one with a wrap around porch - perfectly screened, with old rocking chairs, and a tin water cannister that you fill on hot summer weekend mornings to cool off with after riding the tractor to mow the driveway. I think you find solace in letting the grass grow where it is supposed to, letting the trees cover the view from the highway, and letting the sun warm the spots of the yard where it needs to be warmed. One telephone - preferably in the adults room - that's solace, with a quiet ringer, and the ability to ignore it when it rings - a twenty mile drive to town, but a ten minute drive to the Country Store where you can still buy bread, milk, and beer - and stop in a chat with the lady behind the counter about the war in Iraq or the cost of gas or the upcoming high school football game. Solace is a place where the kids can identify and avoid poisonous snakes, and fish at the little pond in the back corner of the property or can ride the tractor to the end of the driveway to pick up their mail - as soon as the finish feeding the dogs or the cats or the raccoons or whatever else roams around the property. Being able to burn fallen trees and grass clippings on a cold winter night as you sip a drink and stare into the sky that is uninterrupted by the lights of a strip mall or the sound of traffic - just crackles of a fire that you can let burn - and go up into the sleeping porch and just rest - that's solace. Finding a place in the house that is just quiet, and laying there next to your love - and knowing that you are safe, and the kids are safe, and that work is just an email away if you so decide - and you never have to drive to WalMart because you realize that you really don't need new dishes, and you are willing to pay the extra ten dollars per tire for replacements, because the mechanic down the street is just a nice fellow to chat with from time to time, and he always has a piece of Fruit Stripe gum for the kids.

Where can that be found? Who knows - I used to spend a large amount of time in the woods of Virginia, in the Mountains of Pennsylvania, in the hills of North Carolina, in the springs of Florida, in the back roads of Arkansas and Missouri - and all of those states have those slow places - upstate New York - although the winters are miserable cold and isolating, and I imagine in small towns north of Seattle you could find that land, you could find that old pole barn and house, you could make a homestead and a go at it -

In today's day and age, for many of us, it does not matter where we live anymore - I get on a plane every week, and as long as high speed internet or broadband wireless exists, it does not really matter where I am - but people want to cram into their SUV's and their communities and show off the biggest houses and buy the next neat thing that their neighbor may or may not have - me I want a nice stove that uses gas, and a kitchen big enough for five people to sit by the table and laugh as we make biscuits or try and make homemade pasta, a big iron bed with a comfortable mattress, and some nice couches and art work in the common areas - and books, lots of books - ones that I may like, ones that I may hate - but lots of books. Starbucks is nice, but the process of filling the coffee maker with coffee and brewing a pot in the morning is ownership, and sitting in a bathrobe on a Sunday morning with a paper on the porch and waiting for the first cup before you wake up the rest of your family is much more rewarding.

I don't know where to find this place - but I invest time and energy in this place to create those little spaces - gardenias and roses and jasmine, and fencing in the pine trees and planting maples, and keeping comfortable plants on the screened patio, and music - building vestiges of solace and quiet in a suburban neighborhood to just get away -

Insight is difficult sometimes to deal with - but feelings come out when you touch the core of your own personal thoughts - maybe I rambled a bit today - but I can think of nothing more relaxing than being able to ramble a bit as you stare out over the trees and smell the flowers and the heat of a summer morning as you wipe the sweat from your brow, fill your glass with ice water from that silver tin, and sit down on your rocking chair to enjoy the solace...

Until next time...

George

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