Dear Naomi,
Welcome! Welcome to the world of the Average American. Your shift of living arrangements due to the shift in the American Republic is someplace I have been living all my life. These days I have taken to calling the place we live Middle Earth. There are so many parallels. The people in my Shire are down to earth with no pretense. There is always a man selling his produce by the side of a busy highway. There is a Fall Festival every autumn, a 4th of July BBQ every summer and neighbors gather at the VFW Hall for dinners after traipsing out to the local cemetery for a burial. There is a county fair every year and kids raising animals to be sold for food is a thing. When there is a big snowstorm, if you have a long driveway, nobody is going to get you out except YOU. The 2 churches in town have seen an uptick in attendance in the last 2 years. The Post Office is open from 8-2 every day. Closed on the weekend. I have my mail lady’s phone number. I also have the UPS driver’s number for the area. He will leave my packages with my son, who lives just off the highway and not 6 miles out like me. We go to the dump out here, and it is free. I pick up trash alongside the road that I drive to get to town. I get on the ATV more than I get into a car. Going to cut wood during the summer to lay it away for winter is a thing here. Very satisfying to do it and have it behind you. The lowing of cattle is as common as car horns in a city. When you see an ambulance rush through town, or see the Life Flight chopper fly over, it is usually because someone you know is in trouble. It is a place where a beloved woman in this community was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She is not well, but her 85 year old mother rounded up the townsfolk and invited us all to their family reunion, with family from Washington state. We all knew it was a pretense to say good-bye to a still able-to-function dear friend, but it is the way it just is. Here in this Fly Over Place.
A lot of girls around here can out hunt their dads. We eat what we kill and we take care of our land. Because if we don’t, it won’t take care of us. We manage our herds and the grazing of our cattle and livestock. Those that don’t will find themselves slowly being eased out. If we see smoke, we grab our tractors, bulldozers and pickups and get to it, because we know that it is up to us. We turn on neighbors sprinklers if they are not home and pray for those in the heat of the battle. All the fire department personnel are volunteers who attend training and are very good at their jobs.
I have a Phoebe nest out my kitchen window that has been used for the last 10 years by generations of the Flycatcher family. I make sure the water saucers are full for the brood of Hungarian Partridge that have taken up residence in my long border grass. If we are in the right place, we just might hear a wolf or see tracks. Wink. The coyote’s yipping on a chilly morning reconnects us with our reality. A far better reality than the wail of an ambulance, car horns or the obnoxious whump-thump of invasive car stereos.
Welcome to the satisfaction that comes with a life connected to the tangible. Welcome to life as most people know it. We are glad to have you.
Nice, enjoyed that.