This fine week finds me on vacation visiting family in central Wisconsin. It is a small town really a ways from anywhere. Like a 2 hours in the car to get anywhere, ways from anywhere. It makes me feel fairly stupid about "Eh I don't want to go - that is all the way in West Seattle" a whole 15 minute drive. Gasp. Here? Oh you forgot something, well the decent shopping (their words not mine) is, oh, 2 hours away. Oh you want to go to a zoo with your daughter? That is 2 hours south. Oh you want to go out for dinner? Well there are a couple of bars in town... or you could drive to... It really forces me to realize that I have everything at my fingertips.
This is the longest I have ever visited and it has made me realize what a city kid I am. The smallest place I have ever lived is Portland, Or. which while not a big city, it is definitively urban. And I prefer to live properly urban where I can walk to many things from my house. There is this constant white noise of life and it never gets dark really. Last night I turned my light off and it struck me that I could not see my hands in front of my face, it is that dark here at night. On the upside, I saw the milky way for the first time in years (no meteor shower though- It is best pre-dawn & I am not getting out of bed at that time on vacation). Also there is NO noise. None. The quiet is deafening and I literally can't sleep.
It is just interesting to me how different I would be if I had grown up somewhere like this, or it I lived somewhere like this. I am used to no stop, always going everything and that just isn't the way it is here. Or maybe I wouldn't be different. Maybe I would have just been that kid who couldn't wait to get out and never came back. Actually that is probably what I would be... because that is exactly how I feel about suburbs.
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