Country Girl

I guess I might just be a country girl at heart.

When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was move out of the small, country town I had been raised in; come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that was the dream of every single person in my school. Some people made it out; others realized they weren't ready. I suppose I was part of the group that wasn't ready, who didn't quite know what they want.

Now, my husband, daughter and I live up the side of a mountain in upstate New York, just minutes away from my hometown. It's a quiet little place, with down-to-earth neighbors, and we like to joke that the most traffic we see are snowmobiles in the wintertime. It's a great place to raise a little girl; all the kids play in the street, because they know no one will be driving down it, and everyone has a lazy, laid back peace of mind that can only come from fresh air and good company. You might say it's a little piece of paradise, our little house. It's not really much to write home about, no fancy exterior work or landscaping, no gigantic entertainment rooms; but my kitchen always smells like home cooking and our living room is always filled with laughter.

Things are a little different down here. We came south, to a town just outside of Baltimore, for my husband's work. We're staying in a hotel, with no yard, and a great view of some electrical wires and a charcoal grill in the parking lot. The lights from the nearby town make it so bright at night that we have to pull the blinds. There aren't any screens on the windows so we can't open them to hear the crickets; at home, that's our lullaby. No one seems like they want to be where they are, everyone just seems to be too busy. Taking all of this in account, and realizing that no matter how peaceful our little mountain home is, we don't have too much in the way of educational entertainment, we decided to venture into Baltimore to the National Aquarium and the Science Center.

What a trip.

When we arrived at the National Aquarium in Baltimore we were disappointed to find that they don't allow strollers-no one would ever dream of banning them back home, for fear of driving away families in favor of older couples-and there were so many people we weren't quite sure which way to go. The buildings were so tall that they blocked the sunlight, and I turned to my husband, without thinking, and asked, "how do they see the stars?" he just shrugged and kept driving (at this point, we were still in the car), and said, "I guess they don't care to see them." The strangest part of the whole trip was when we walked past someone and I smiled, like I always do at home, they didn't smile back. Now, I'm not saying that I live in such a small community that I know everyone, in fact, we live only a few minutes from Saratoga and that's where we do all of our shopping and most of our weekend activities. But, at least where we come from, politeness is returned with politeness; in this city, politeness is returned with indifference. I suppose you're probably reading this thinking, "are you really that sheltered?", to which the answer is no, but as humans, how can you not smile when someone is smiling at you? Are we that programmed to think that the world is mocking us that we can't just see when there is genuine appreciation for a door being held open just that half a second longer to help a lady get a stroller in, or when someone says an extra "thank you" when the cashier rings them out? Why does that seem so unrealistic?

I can't wait to get home. I can't wait to walk out into my front yard with the grass underneath my sandals and look up at the night sky and see a million different stars twinkle down at me. I can't wait to hear the crickets singing us to sleep and hear a random owl or the sound of a dog howling. It makes me smile now to think back to those high school days when all I wanted was to leave; silly isn't it, how all I want now is to go home.