Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Country Alien, City Alien

Nora and I are at Mom's tonight, and as "we" were falling asleep, Nora says, "I like Grandma's house the best."  "Oh, better than your house?" I ask.  "Yeah, Grandma's house makes noise."  Just then the train whistles, and the sound of Grandpa putting more wood in the fireplace downstairs thunks through the walls.  A car blows a horn.

At the farm, the air is glass, the house mute.  You can almost (did I imagine?) hear the train a mile down calling for an ear to cup its wail, acknowledge its trail.  When the snow coats the ground, to look out the window, you might mistakenly think you are the only person on some new planet.  Terrifying.  Liberating.  Quiet wonder of the curious human dropped in the middle of the blank field waiting for the stars to fall and punctuate her breath.

I like country life.

1 comment:

  1. So I'm home for the weekend (in Utica), and I'm sitting on my bed reading this post; My eyes see the line about the train whistle and my ears hear the real train go by outside my window :) A second later, I read the line about Grandpa stoking the fireplace as I hear my dad putting another log into the woodstove before coming upstairs. (: It's one of those creepy-same-moment things, yet kind of cool at the same time. Beautiful thoughts.

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