In the outskirts, after living for decades in the cities, it may seem like less is happening around you, and it is, but this is not at all a bad thing.
Since there are fewer people, the people that are living near you in the outskirts, be it town, village, or hamlet are more vivid. This is especially true if they are vivid in the first place such as those sporting full body tattoos and/or long, very long, passages of scripture tattooed across their breasts, around the back, and evidently down the spine. Like I said, vivid.
At the same time there is a strong normality so bland, so low-key, that one would flee from it if it weren't so restful and so reassuring and so honest.
Case in point: Purchase a bag of almonds at a street market. A simple transaction over in a moment. Getting home you take our the almonds and notice the printed tag that seals the bag of "Queen of the Valley Chili & Lemon Almonds." On the back of the tag is a short message from the family the owns and sustains the almond orchard. It's signed, "Marie, Joseph, Emily & 'Lil' Marie" in a plain and simple manner with no smear of green pretense nor taint of some corporate marketing department's focus-grouped palaver.
A family, an orchard, a product. By Us, "Marie, Joseph, Emily & 'Lil' Marie" Life among normal people here on the outskirts. A good deal.
I pity the cities.
Posted by gerardvanderleun at May 20, 2016 2:17 PM
I also pity the cities.
Spent the day in Seattle. A place so trendy as to make an old hick like me feel out of place. So enclosed in buildings, so heavily paved, overrun with cars, so unfriendly, so littered with homeless, - I could go on and on - but you get my drift.
2 1/2 hours to drive home on bumper to bumper choked I-5. What a relief when the Skagit Valley hove into view. Agriculture, fishing, timber (no longer for cutting) and snow draped Mount Baker - it's not Heaven but will do for now.
Posted by: Jimmy J. at May 20, 2016 8:32 PM@Jimmy J.
Pity us, poor souls, who have lived in the heart of Seattle low these past 40 years. I feel like Chance the Gardner when he finally left the walled garden of the grand house of the Old Man to see a car on cement blocks across the littered street and met NO ONE who looked, talked or dressed like him. It's gritty in the this city. The upside is the housing shortage and all those Californians and New Yorkers who have nothing but money with which to fight over my prime real estate in another year or so.
We'll move to our own piece of heaven and I'll produce something special that everyone loves. Watch this space.
Posted by: AbigailAdams at May 20, 2016 10:44 PMIs there an SAT question in there:
City is to flash with no substance as
Rural is to _____ ?
I too prefer rural, with its multifaceted and honest substance. And what the hell is an SAT, anymore!
Posted by: Bakken Wag at May 21, 2016 6:19 AMI live in a farming community, between two cities but buffered by Indian reservations, so, the city creep is halted. It has grown triple since my childhood, but, it is still feels rural and local. Maybe because I can still take walks around a farm inside the city.
Posted by: Leslie at May 21, 2016 9:40 AMI would now suppose I have been very fortunate in that I have lived in very rural areas almost my entire life. Born and raised outside a town of 2500 souls and now live outside a town of just over 2500 that is the most remote incorporated "city" in the lower 48.
Posted by: Terry at May 21, 2016 11:26 AMChili and lemon sounds super yummy. Last week I purchased wasabi almonds at Trader Vic's by accident. Turns out they're scrumptious with dirty vodka martinis.
It's good when the noise softens and life slows down enough for one to recognize "the real gold of our lives" as it is happening rather then having to wait for it as a reflection. I'm smiling about your good fortune!
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