Do you ever notice the way in which your day-to-day life has become
inured to what each of your days contains?
I have
found that over the years I have become a Country Mouse, never veering far
from a certain path. And this involves never going far from the
home-work-food store-appointments-home realm. No more kid driving, kid
soccer/sports games and practices, school events, wrestling about homework, kid
social needs, kid food purchasing and cooking, kid limit setting, kid stuff
buying. When we have a different life than mine, with other involvements, I
imagine they change also, all in unpredictable ways, over so many years.
From observing and listening to people for so long, it also seems that around 60 and then around 85, people seem to wake up to the lives they have created, or that have been contributed to by experience and circumstance. Boom boom. They wake up to their own particular flavor of life. They seem to sense a slight pause in the passage of life, and take note, standing up, and peering about, taking in what their own life has been, from this vantage point.
My home is situated on a foothill of The Mount Holyoke Range, as it slides down, beneath my house and that of the our cottage nearby, down down through the conservation lands where Native People once did dwell, down past the outwaters where fowl and bear and weasel and coyote and geese inhabit their respective homes, down to the Connecticut River.
From observing and listening to people for so long, it also seems that around 60 and then around 85, people seem to wake up to the lives they have created, or that have been contributed to by experience and circumstance. Boom boom. They wake up to their own particular flavor of life. They seem to sense a slight pause in the passage of life, and take note, standing up, and peering about, taking in what their own life has been, from this vantage point.
My home is situated on a foothill of The Mount Holyoke Range, as it slides down, beneath my house and that of the our cottage nearby, down down through the conservation lands where Native People once did dwell, down past the outwaters where fowl and bear and weasel and coyote and geese inhabit their respective homes, down to the Connecticut River.
When you
drive out my driveway, you can turn left, which brings you into either Amherst
(yes, Lord Jeffrey, of poisoned blanket fame) or Northampton, home to a land
full to bursting with lawyers, therapists and bodyworkers, and a vast
compendium of restaurants that provide exquisite fare with tender service.
How it
works it that people come from far away to see their lawyers, therapists and
bodyworkers, go eat some remarkable meal, and then spend lots of money in
expensive, unusual shops that dazzle the eye and tickle the beating heart.
And in this strange land exist a myriad of middle class or more moneyed parents, who somewhat narcissistically obsess over their offspring, in a way that sometimes has little to do with actually spending time with or knowing said offspring. A compulsivity that is most probably the next generation to my own research-everything-be-perfectly-present-witness-the-kid-well-and-maybe-they’ll-be-ok style of parenting, which is somewhat understandable if one’s own upbringing was frequented by the unspeakable.
When one is a Country Mouse, similar to Town Mice, there is a grown familiarity with who one knows or passes by , or notices on the daily drivebys. The neighbor who annually turns their bushes into red mushrooms with white stems (what is that about??). The neighbor who is seen each August, out front in his bathrobe, finally putting together his little patch of garden arrangement for the summer. Or cross the way, the neighbor, proprietor of a culinary herb company, who avidly decorates for every conceivable event or holiday or season, necessitating sunglasses, even in the evening, as you drive by.
In our neighborhood, we have Mitch’s Marina, down the hill, whose summer boasts a small line up of RV’s that sit along the river, the temporary inhabitants wandering toward Mitch’s snack shop, or down the road to the Barstow’s Farm Store, dairy farmers who brilliantly created yet one more local farm store restaurant, with neighborhood creatives selling their wares on shelves, every bit of every thing recyclable in some fashion. You can sit at the tables or counter, and catch sight of the eagles from the protected area across the street, or their cows being let out of agreeably too- small pens , to take turns romping in the fields .
And in this strange land exist a myriad of middle class or more moneyed parents, who somewhat narcissistically obsess over their offspring, in a way that sometimes has little to do with actually spending time with or knowing said offspring. A compulsivity that is most probably the next generation to my own research-everything-be-perfectly-present-witness-the-kid-well-and-maybe-they’ll-be-ok style of parenting, which is somewhat understandable if one’s own upbringing was frequented by the unspeakable.
When one is a Country Mouse, similar to Town Mice, there is a grown familiarity with who one knows or passes by , or notices on the daily drivebys. The neighbor who annually turns their bushes into red mushrooms with white stems (what is that about??). The neighbor who is seen each August, out front in his bathrobe, finally putting together his little patch of garden arrangement for the summer. Or cross the way, the neighbor, proprietor of a culinary herb company, who avidly decorates for every conceivable event or holiday or season, necessitating sunglasses, even in the evening, as you drive by.
In our neighborhood, we have Mitch’s Marina, down the hill, whose summer boasts a small line up of RV’s that sit along the river, the temporary inhabitants wandering toward Mitch’s snack shop, or down the road to the Barstow’s Farm Store, dairy farmers who brilliantly created yet one more local farm store restaurant, with neighborhood creatives selling their wares on shelves, every bit of every thing recyclable in some fashion. You can sit at the tables or counter, and catch sight of the eagles from the protected area across the street, or their cows being let out of agreeably too- small pens , to take turns romping in the fields .
Our next
door neighbor is a private person, who enjoys ATVs and guns. And does not like
you walking down his driveway to stop by and ask if that horse that just ran
through your yard is his. He did have a girlfriend for awhile, who had horses
that were carefully tended, never ever out in the rainy days. But one day she
and the horses vanished, and he pulled down that fence, flattened the land, and
now all that’s left is the quiet barn, listing, and the view down into the
forest.
If you drive up my driveway and turn right, you head down the mountain toward an opening of lush fields, the Connecticut itself, endlessly raging by, and other places farther away- possibly Italy …or California…Ohio, or maybe just a few hours down the road.
Yesterday I drove up my driveway and turned right, leaving the realm of Country Mouse and venturing toward a farther destination. Out on my tiny version of ‘open road’, a far cry from traversing the entire country in the past, I relished the hills and dales, the passing traffic…the passing traffic??? Somehow I had lost the habit of highway driving. Once upon a time I drove my 6th grader to almost Boston 3x a week for a premier soccer team. Of all the crazy things to do. My customary 80mph speed of old was today replaced by 60mph, annoyed drivers streaming past me with barely contained contention, rushing toward…or simply rushing, I wouldn’t know.
I was welcomed into a home with a warm heart of a kitchen, red shelved, wood stove, soup steaming , the pale early winter beyond visible through the windows , with a whole different population of fowl, habituated to their filled feeders and suet.
If you drive up my driveway and turn right, you head down the mountain toward an opening of lush fields, the Connecticut itself, endlessly raging by, and other places farther away- possibly Italy …or California…Ohio, or maybe just a few hours down the road.
Yesterday I drove up my driveway and turned right, leaving the realm of Country Mouse and venturing toward a farther destination. Out on my tiny version of ‘open road’, a far cry from traversing the entire country in the past, I relished the hills and dales, the passing traffic…the passing traffic??? Somehow I had lost the habit of highway driving. Once upon a time I drove my 6th grader to almost Boston 3x a week for a premier soccer team. Of all the crazy things to do. My customary 80mph speed of old was today replaced by 60mph, annoyed drivers streaming past me with barely contained contention, rushing toward…or simply rushing, I wouldn’t know.
I was welcomed into a home with a warm heart of a kitchen, red shelved, wood stove, soup steaming , the pale early winter beyond visible through the windows , with a whole different population of fowl, habituated to their filled feeders and suet.
Enjoyed
the pleasure of sitting with those I knew so long ago, listening to stories of
lives and circumstance, gifts that unexpectedly grew, places out in the world
carefully crafted for others, a folder of artwork reflecting a navigated life
with such extraordinary works of art, their small photographed representatives
leaving me filled with their images, left later with the vestiges of how I
imagined they were created.
We sipped soup and crunched salad and had
delectable cheese and shrimp, and took turns describing lives, listening and
talking, laughing and musing. I felt as if I were one of a species that was
meeting up with like beings, in some inexplicable way.
And then, in late afternoon, not 7 pm or 9 pm, goodbyes were said, and I was back on the highway, this time not managing the carefully printed directions, not catching sight of signs in time, ending up in some parking lot of some generic highway service area on the phone with my beloved, at home, who needed calming and reassurance that despite driving several extra hours, I was fine, thank you, and to please calm down and can you tell me where to drive next please?
Then on down the darkening, fog filled road I wandered, stretching my stiff wings, considering other possibilities. : Africa, The Carolinas, Vermont, or even something like this, once again.
And then, in late afternoon, not 7 pm or 9 pm, goodbyes were said, and I was back on the highway, this time not managing the carefully printed directions, not catching sight of signs in time, ending up in some parking lot of some generic highway service area on the phone with my beloved, at home, who needed calming and reassurance that despite driving several extra hours, I was fine, thank you, and to please calm down and can you tell me where to drive next please?
Then on down the darkening, fog filled road I wandered, stretching my stiff wings, considering other possibilities. : Africa, The Carolinas, Vermont, or even something like this, once again.
