City Mouse Country Mouse

November 28, 2016

Greetings from the edge of town,

Recently I met a woman at a party and in the course of getting to know each other she told me where she lived.  I was wistfully envious of her, a term I use whenever envying something I have no real knowledge of.  I usually save this level of envy for automobiles that have a heater and a tape player that works.

In this example, the town the woman mentioned is reputed to be a charming village setting with interesting shops and a quaint main street all nestled in a bucolic setting.  Good schools connected by well-maintained streets to beautiful neighborhoods lined with homes of such quality one would never find them in one’s own town.

The woman continued; “But I’d rather live in Chicago.  It’s my favorite place in the world.”  This intrigued me so I asked what it was about the city she admired so much that she would trade it for the pastoral paradise in which she lived.  While she was responding I wandered off in my mind to see how I would fill in the answer myself.  And that made me think of Aesop.

I will pause here to say that usually when I ask a question I pay attention to the person answering with such dedicated focus one might think I had been hypnotized.  I only mention this in case there is ever a conversation in which I am involved with you where you think I am not listening, but I am.  Honestly.  I heard everything you said.

In Aesop’s fable ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’, which I have read in the original Greek, we learn that sometimes one environment, however wistfully envied, is often good for one mouse but perhaps not for the other.  In the interest of full disclosure I should explain that I don’t actually understand Greek, original or otherwise, and in spite of the mandate of cheap humor to which I am bound, I will not use the phrase ‘It’s all Greek to me.’ But I will justify my earlier statement by saying that I have read the words but did not understand their meaning until much later when I read them in English, which may not be original.

I like Chicago.  When I was wondering if I would like living there I envisioned the hustle and then the requisite bustle.  Good pizza.  Night life. Interesting architecture.  Lots of museums and parks.  Access to good coffee.  I remembered getting a cupcake at a place called ‘Sprinkles’.  And armed with that deep research I could imagine living there.

I have spent time in most big cities in our country.  Explored their nooks and crannies, run their streets, found where the locals eat.  I think I have some feel for what it might be like to live in a metropolis.  The noise of traffic.  The crush of people in elevators, in line for bagels, in subways, in the apartment above you, taking your parking place.  The high cost of food, of apartments, of coffee.  And the beauty of diversity, the interesting music, the towering skylines, the townhouses and lofts and cobblestone streets.  The corner bistro, the sidewalk café, the secret green spaces, wedges of nature among concrete.

And I have spent time in small towns of all sizes; the spectrum from stop sign intersections surrounded by miles of corn to train towns to bedroom communities braced against the burgeoning metropolis they serve.  Logging towns turned into respites for big city parolees, or planned rows of little boxes on the hillside and they all look the same. 

And in all the places in between where there are only neighbors who see each other at the general store or the co-op.  The little scraps of people in secluded mountain towns where the only sign of humanity is the smell of wood smoke or a sign that has the local population written in chalk.

I have been in these places on a visitor’s visa, and I know it’s not the same as living there.  But I have an imagination and I can sense what it’s like to be a resident of Enid or Austin or La Jolla or Seattle.  I know I could live there; it’s easy to know since I am not saddled with the burden of familiarity, and I am inspired by my wistful enviousness.  I could love New York City, I could leave my heart in San Francisco.  I could live off the grid.  I could live over a bakery.

 I love meeting the people in the places I pass through, and among that great and varied throng there is always a subset that willingly shares with me that they would rather be living somewhere else.  Thankfully we don’t all get our wish in this regard or else we would all be somewhere else and strangers would slowly be getting bored with where we were from. 

The woman who would rather live in Chicago had a ready list of what made it her kind of town.  Chief among its attractions was this: ‘My sister lives there.’  See, I was listening. 

Ironically the town I live in is so much like her little town I was so wistfully envious of that you might think that I described it that way on purpose to carry the irony further.  I did, but it’s still true. 

Big city, small town, condo in the mountains, one room third-floor-walk-up in Harlem, drafty farmhouse in the dustbowl, damp brick shotgun bungalow by the levy.  Each comes with an experience and a price.  Occasionally it is sensible to look at that price and make sure it is worth our paying it.  Sometimes the reasons to stay or move are sensible and well thought out and sometimes it’s your sister.

Go where you will, but remember; wherever you go, there you are.

Hope this finds you at home,

David