Walking Down A Country Road

While visiting my brother in Colorado, I took a long walk down a country road one morning. My memories bubbled to the surface like a fresh water spring and I was in touch with my inner country girl again.  I became aware that a rural setting always sets my spirit free. As I gazed across the wide open spaces, I was reminded that I felt more relaxed and peaceful in this setting  than anywhere else.  For miles there is nothing but prairie. The expansive landscape is dotted by small clusters of tidy farms, horses and cattle. The air smells clean. Wild sunflowers and lupine grow along the side of the road, haphazardly and untamed.

I guess you could say I was raised a city girl. For the most part, I lived in a small suburban town in north Jersey with the Manhattan skyline on my horizon. My father moved my brother and me to a city in Connecticut for a brief stint but it was in the NJ suburb that I lived for most of my formative years. But I always had a country girl spirit.

As a child, I played cowgirl...a lot!  In my suburban yard there was an old garage with a water trough and a hayloft with hay dust still covering the floor. I was convinced it would be perfect for a pony and so I asked for one for my birthday or Christmas. I argued that I wanted just a small pony I could keep in the garage since we had that trough. Sadly my parents never obliged.

There would be the occasional trip to the country to visit my father's cousins and a vague memory of visiting a farm with my grandmother. I became aware of a growing desire to have a different life away from the confines of a city.

As soon as I was able, I acted on my desire. At the beginning of my junior year of college, I moved off campus to a small farm. For the next thirteen years of my young adult life I chose rural environs to make my home.

The most remote location was a seven acre property in the Adirondack region of upstate NY.  In the mid '70s, my young husband and I raised sled dogs for amateur racing. We heated the house with a wood stove and I tried my hand at organic gardening, baking bread and preserving the meager harvest. We tapped maple trees and cooked our own syrup. I took long walks in the woods.

I haven't spent an extended period of time in a remote country setting until now. Back in touch with my inner country girl, I am reminded that this is where I need to be once in awhile...to relax, regroup, be inspired and creative. It is here that I have gotten back to writing and I realize that it's no coincidence.