I took a walk today. I have not done that in a long while, and my body protested as I began. In the first two minutes, my legs hurt, I felt winded and wanted to quit – but I reminded myself that it would get easier the more I did it. So, I kept walking.
I live in an old apartment, but the area around it has some nice houses and a sidewalk – and I had walked along them before and enjoyed it. It had been a LONG time since doing that though, so I was paying more attention to how my body was feeling, instead of the yards and flowers. I was getting warm and sweaty and had to take my hoodie off and tie it around my waist and stop and take a drink now and then from my water bottle. I made it up the main road, to the school and took a turn off onto a side road. As I was coming down the side road, I saw an area where the grass and bushes were overtaking the sidewalk. The houses were not as nice and well-kept. And it was then, that I felt a great surge of nostalgia and melancholy – and felt more at home.
It was odd I thought, that I would feel more at peace in an area that was rundown and quiet. Where bushes overtook walkways. Where blackberry briars and sweet peas surrounded an abandoned house, whose windows were broken – and you wondered what the inside looked like and why nobody cared about it anymore. As I walked along, I tried to get a hold of why it felt so good to be there – why I felt like I belonged. And then I remembered that one of my favorite places to live, was in an old farmhouse in rural Oregon when I was a kid.
The farmhouse was on about an acre of property. There were two pine trees in the front yard with a tire swing. While the grass directly in front of our house was somewhat maintained, the rest grew tall and I often walked through it to various parts of our property. The grass was tall almost everywhere – except where we had trodden it down going to specific places – to the run-down barn to play, to the dried-up pigpen where we made a “club house”, to the aged apple trees, and to the barbed-wire fence where we squeezed ourselves through to go visit our neighbors. While others saw a forlorn overgrown yard, I saw peace and comfort. It was quiet and lovely. I could explore and play. Being alone didn’t feel lonely.
I finished my walk and kept thinking about my feelings – of the joy and peace of living on our old farm, and the dull heartache of realizing that I will never go back – and that I may never have that kind of experience again. Most people would love to see themselves in a fancy new house with a landscaped yard and a three-car garage. I myself, would be perfectly content with a small home in the country, with fruit trees, and enough property that I could tend part of it, and leave the rest to grow wild and free. I would love the quiet and peacefulness of being alone. But I would never feel lonely.
amylenore 