The day went by too quickly. I walked up to feed the goats (Olie & Sammy) with my daughter and her friend. My neighbor came out and we talked about her new house remodel. We talked about another house being built next door and the house that's being built on the street below mine, our growing neighborhood. We talked about her daughter volunteering on a horse farm and learning that she'll be bringing one or two horses to live in the field with the goats. We were thrilled to hear this as they sold our favorite horse Rusty when their daughter went to college and we visited Rusty daily with apples from our tree and carrots during the off season.
Then I walked to my other neighbor's house to see their new baby lambs. 3 black 3 white and it's no lie, little lambs frolic. We talked about coyotes and how their llama is doing a great job protecting the lambs, but the other night, something--they think a dog--got in and killed one of their adult sheep. Before the guardian llama, I'd hear my neighbor's husband shoot his rifle to scare the coyotes. The coyote babies howl when they are hungry or feeding, they are easy to find in the mix of things.
When my daughter was an infant some nights I'd race into to her bedroom because I could hear her crying. When I opened the door, I'd find her fast asleep. That was when I realized that the howl of coyotes circling in the forest sounds very much like a baby's cry. I've been here ten years. It's gone by faster than I can explain. I wish I had taken better photographs of the neighborhood, but I didn't expect it change.
Though we're growing, there are still many reminders we are small town --the first obviously is that nice neighbors can shoot their guns into the forest and no one calls the police on them, we're still under 3000 people, there are trails through the forest instead of homes, I know the names of all my neighbors and people I don't live by, I once took a walk and found sheep wandering the neighborhood and this did not surprise me, I've also seen three bears, a baby cougar, bats, deer, and about thirty quail running across the street while on walks. I see bald eagles, red hawks, and heron flying by my house daily.
What I realized is that while I was in school, I've been so checked out of this life--my life. Outdoors had become a foreign city to me. I was mostly inside writing. Now, I'm watching myself return to the life I had before the MFA program, where I gardened into the evening and spent time talking to neighbors about nothing important, but everything important. I'm realizing that I'm no longer in a rush to be anywhere, because there's no place I need to be. For a long time, I've had something that's needed to be done--a book to read, a poem to be written--but now, if I don't rush back inside to get to something, it doesn't matter. I've returned to my life pre-PLU, a life of wander and leisure.
This is why I moved here. This is why I read this book-- Moving To a Small Town, a Guidebook for Moving from Urban to Rural Living. I've been so busy I've forgotten about the simple life I led. And yet, it's still around. Waiting for me to pull up a chair and sit down. I had forgotten in March how the clematis blooms and the red bodies of peonies are already stretching from earth. And the wasps begin to seek anything made of wood. It's funny how I can get wrapped up in the "importance of poetry" and forget about the world taking place without me outside my window. No wonder I haven't had anything to write about, my hands have not been in the earth and my head has been wrapped in its own thoughts. I'm just glad to be home.
