Country Girl in the Big City

I love living in the country. The scenery, the freedom to take long, wandering walks through fields and woods, and the open spaces all are reasons I am glad we live on one acre right between all the major towns in our county. I love that we live on a tree-lined gravel road, and that about twenty dogs and numerous other animals live on this short, dead-end road of 11 houses. I love how the air smells and how all the neighbors grumble when an unsuspecting visitor goes 30 down the road. I am so glad we live out here!

And yet at times I think that I am not a true country girl because of how I love my occasional expeditions into the city. Yesterday I took the train to Seattle with my mom and my two youngest siblings, and I had so much fun! The supposed goal of our trip was some christmas shopping, but we really didn't get much of that done at all. I spent too much time marveling at the sights and sounds to realize that I had shopping to do.

In Seattle, we used public transportation four times, which is four times more than I use it in a typical year! The bus is still something that scares me, and it is one of the reasons I want to take my car to college. But we survived our bus trips, and we even survived walking around downtown Seattle. My favorite part was when we left the mall and major retail area of downtown, and walked a few blocks to Pike Place Market. There was a string quartet made up of college students who were absolutely wonderful! I could have listened to them for such a long time...but there were others in the group than me and I had to leave after they'd played 2 songs.

When I'm on adventures, the artist in me comes to the forefront. I kept finding perfect photos or paintings...in the arrangement of produce at a stand, in how a tree touched the sky, in old little alleys and in the people around me. Oh, how I wished I had brought a camera! Or even someone who could share that simple beauty with me; my siblings were too busy with other things and just looked at me funny when I would say, "Isn't that cool?!?" If you've ever read and understood Wordsworth's poem "Tinturn Abbey," you know what I mean when I say that "in this moment there is life and food for future years."