I remember attempting to write a fiction novel once and the opening scene was of a rambling white farmhouse set fairly close to the road – perhaps 20 feet from the road – with a gravel driveway on the right side leading to a rather rickety two stall garage. The two worn paths of the driveway had grass growing in-between the tire tracks. On the left side, there was a large maple tree in full bloom with branches low enough for a kid to climb on. The yard itself was large and neatly mowed but beyond the yard, the waste-high wild grasses led up to the line of woods in the distance, just up a small hill. The sun shone brightly in a blue sky and birds were singing. The road was one of those that was barely two car-widths wide and had the air of a road definitely less travelled. The idea was that time moved so slowly there that one’s thoughts could settle calmly into rational order. That, if you listened hard enough, you could actually hear the grass grow.
It’s funny, because that setting is a combination of the house I grew up in and where I live now, although I hadn’t met this house at the time. I grew up in a rambling white two-story traditional with a two-stall garage on the left, led up to by a shared gravel driveway with grass in between the tire tracks. There were five big maple trees in our front and side yard. But, it was a neighborhood setting, although there was little to no traffic. Unless you needed to be up that road, it wasn’t a road you would travel on.
Where I am now is out in that country lane. The house is big but dark gray. We mow about an acre of land and the remainder is woods. The farmer next door has the field across the road where he rotates crops from oats to corn to fallow. The setting would be absolutely perfect except for the occasional highway noise which is about a half-mile away past the farmer’s fields.
Rarely, however, can I invoke the peace that my written vision gave me. That’s why I was so disappointed that I couldn’t find the story to fit my serene setting. I could almost feel the sunshine beating down, the soft breeze and the sweaty glass full of iced lemonade when I let my mind wander back there.
But living out here does get me close.
This past weekend was nothing short of glorious. Although we had plenty of yard work to do, the mental escape I gave myself – of someone who doesn’t have to work at all – was pretty relaxing. It allowed me to fully relax and focus on the things around the house that I needed to get done. The inside got cleaned – and I mean really cleaned, not just picked up. The gardens got weeded and mulched with no visits from any garter snakes. Laundry got dried on the clothes line. We worked on the two down trees some more. I made dinner and we went out to dinner once.
While it was a productive weekend homewise, it was also a respite from everyday living. It was an escape into a “mini-vacation.” It allowed me to feel like I was living in that simple house along that simple road with nothing to do but listen to the grass grow.
Too often, we fill our everday with too much. We live our lives so stinking overstimulated that we got lost and uncomfortable in simple peace. And when we realize that we desperately need a simple peace, we book a place in the mountains or at the beach which is totally unfamiliar to us to “get away from it all.” It occurs to me that the reason this appeals so much is that eliminates some of the familiar distractions at home. But because I hate leaving home in summer and particularly hate leaving my cat at all, the true exercise has been in attempting to capture simple peace right at home.
I got close this weekend, but in retrospect I can see some of the flaws in my approach. First, we worked like dogs in the yard. My whole body hurt yesterday. So, perhaps work but not work to exhaustion. Secondly, I need to put the cell phone away more. It needs to be set aside for the weekend. Close enough that I will hear it if it rings. Far enough away that I won’t resort to bad habits of cruising the internet, reading the news and my emails, shopping, facebooking or other stuff that I tend to do.
Those are my next big “trys” for next weekend. To work at a more measured pace and to mostly sever the electronic connection to the outside world. If the weather holds out, I can imagine getting just a little step closer to the setting in my long-forgotten book attempt. This time, however, it will be a dark gray house, a farm field across the road, two gardens in the back yard, laundry blowing lightly in the breeze, the sun beating down, the shade of the front porch keeping it reasonably cool and a glass of iced lemonade sitting on the wide arm of the Adirondack chair beside me.
Ah… peaceful settings.
The Yuppie Homesteader 