About a Pine

Small damaged things...

So as I think I've written before, once our move to Oregon was a definite thing, I dug up the Scotch Pine I'd bought as a seedling from a friend's son (part of a Boy Scout Christmas fundraiser) a few years ago. 

Back when I received it, I tended to the pine in its tiny plastic pot until it was ready to go into the ground, and then I planted it in our backyard in Paso Robles. But after a year of typical brutal sun and wind, one side of the tree was completely scorched, to a point where I thought it might die. And since pines don't like alkaline water and our well water was high in alkalinity, even the manual watering I provided was just not to its taste. Literally. 

But I refused to give up on it. I have great sympathy - maybe too much -- for anything that is originally planted in the wrong place, because that is the story of my life. Born in the middle of the city, should have been in the country. I spent most of my childhood acutely aware that somehow, I'd been mailed to the wrong address, and yet I still stayed for 30 years or so before finally getting the guts to jailbreak myself out and into a small country town in Central California, which was better, but still not the four-seasons climate I always felt I belonged in.  

...become big and beautiful in the right places

So when I noticed the pine tree was failing, of course I decided to dig it up and put it into a temporary container and bring it along with us to the Pacific Northwest.

It is no easy task bringing plants along when you're moving 14 hours north. They take up a lot of space that could be used for other possessions and by nature, potted plants are not always stable when riding in the back of a car or truck.  But when Big Ag brought a bunch of things north a couple of months before we moved, I made him put the pine tree in the back seat of the truck and told him to find a shady spot for it someplace around the property we were going to be living on. Which, God bless him, he did. 

It sat here in Oregon for two months, with no water other than what the rain provided. But lo and behold, when I finally got up here, it looked better than it had during its entire time in Paso Robles. Lots of new needles, and the burned side (above) at least appeared to not be getting any worse. 

Sometimes the circumstances don't need to be perfect for us to leave and go to a new place; we just need to gather our courage, and go. As Goethe once said, "whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

And sometimes there is even more than one right place!

Since it's been growing each day since it's been here, today I transplanted the Scotch Pine into a new, larger container, which will hold it nicely until we find a home we like and can plant it on the property somewhere. The scorched needles have dropped, and slowly new growth is appearing all over the tree. So it is when you end up in the right place. Old wounds from being in the wrong place begin to heal, and you begin the process of growth again. 

But it's the beginning it that's the key to everything, I think. Dreams were not meant to stay dreams forever; that's not what we were given the dreams for. And that's true whether you're a little Christmas pine tree longing for the cloud forest or a human being longing for a new home.

Begin it.

The Sad and Lonely Horse

So I occasionally browse a website comprised of people from our neighborhood who post inquiries, complaints and comments on a kind of message board, and someone posted this a few days ago.

The guy who coined the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," was not too far off. It turns out the person who wrote this post just moved here from the city, and knows nothing about horses. He admitted as much in the comments section a little further down the page, once people started questioning whether or not he should be urging people to stop and handle/feed someone else's animal, who clearly was not hungry or neglected in any way whatsoever.

For the record, I'm a big fan of kindness, especially towards animals. But ascribing human emotions to animals is not generally a good thing, unless you are an expert in that particular animal or species, enough to know how they emote their moods.

I drive past this horse myself several times a week and can tell you that this big gelding is not sad, but rather....zen. He's chilling in his favorite corner, lazing in the sun, and meditating on nothing in particular. Or who knows, perhaps he's planning final details regarding the destruction of western civilization/mankind in a very slow and methodical way.  We won't know until it's too late.

He's well fed, in great condition, and just doing what horses do in the heat of summer, which is stand in one place for several hours, pondering, studying...zoning out. All horses do this. But I'm guessing he's not sad.

What really gets me is the guy floating the idea that everyone start feeding the "sad and lonely horse" carrots. Can you imagine the amount of carrots this horse would be ingesting if 75 people stopped to feed him every day? It kind of boggles the mind and could actually be damaging to the horse, since carrots are pretty high in sugar and are supposed to be a treat, not a staple. 

Some people move here to our area for the option to keep livestock, and others move here for the wine. And as long as the livestock people don't start trying to tell the wine people what makes a good Cabernet and the wine people don't start trying to cheer up the livestock people's animals who are pastured near common roads, life can be good here. It's all about mutual respect.

What we all need to focus on is the passive aggressive and insecure goats on the next street over, anyway. Now they need some serious help, I'm telling you. Perhaps we can find them a good therapist.

The Real LaLa Land

Don't pay attention to the dancing beauties; your first clue this is a fantasy is the idea of available street parking. 

Do I ever review films? Do I even see them on a regular basis? Well, no, but I have a few things I'd like to say about "LaLa Land" as I think it's becoming a sort of lighthouse beacon, inspiring aspiring actors and actresses from all over the world to move to Los Angeles and try and become the kind of person that TMZ is interested in following,  no, of course I mean that hones their artistic craft and becomes admired for it.

The City of The Angels is singing its siren song again, something it does every few years when some lucky soul who did come to LA and strike it rich decides to make everyone else think they can, too.

First of all, I want to start by saying that, as a native Angeleno, I did actually really like "LaLa Land," mainly because it was such an affectionate send-up of my hometown -- restaurants, architecture, neighborhoods, all of which are familiar icons of my childhood. My one complaint about the movie was its completely and utterly unrealistic view of show business, and of course, Los Angeles itself. 

In the movie, both the hero and heroine become successful entertainers, cashing in on their talents to the fullest by the time the film ends. The only problem is that this isn't how things usually happen in the real LaLa Land. So in reality, what might more realistically have happened to our romantic pair?  

Second clue: lack of traffic (and jumpers) on Suicide Bridge in Pasadena at rush hour.

Sebastian, our jazz piano player hero (portrayed by Ryan Gosling), might possibly have found good work...as a studio musician, providing he kept up with his union dues and his industry connections, which he seemed to have. He would have been supplying piano riffs in things like McDonald's commercials, industrial videos and recordings of all kinds. A regularly paying gig is a coveted nirvana for most LA musicians who have been around for any length of time, and they tend to count their blessings if they're working regularly, no matter what kind of music it is they are playing. Work is work.

 Mia, our actress heroine (played by Emma Stone), might have ended up working in administration for Warner Brothers, or maybe just managing the coffee kiosk where she had been working. She would have done secretarial temping, waitressing, and catering to pay her bills until a combination of age and burnout sent her into more regular employment, as audition opportunities dwindled. 

Don't believe me? Watch Turner Classic Movies sometime and pay close attention to the closing credits, for any film. Every single person in a supporting role in a film ("girl on street corner," or "Mr. Smith's driver"  was once convinced this was their big break, and that they were finally headed for stardom. Once in a blue moon it actually happened (kind of like winning the lottery). But 99.9 percent of the names you see are unfamiliar strangers to you now because that minor role -- that "big break" -- turned out not to be the start of something great. Six months after their "film debut," it was probably back to that second job and more rounds of auditions. 10 years later, it was probably over and they either got out of the business entirely, or took a job backstage or in studio administration. Or departed Los Angeles, back to whatever town they had come from, becoming someone the neighbors might point to in the hardware store and whisper, "well, he was once a successful Hollywood actor, you know! He appeared with Charlton Heston in 'Ben Hur' as a chariot driver!")

I write this not to throw a wet blanket on the film -- in fact I recommend it highly. Take it in, enjoy it and tap your feet along with the excellent soundtrack while a completely fantastical Los Angeles rolls by visually.

Third clue: believing that young, struggling newcomers in town get invited to parties in places like this.

But don't let your friends, your children or your family become starstruck and think LA is the place to make it. Don't think the streets are that safe, that clean, or that final-read auditions, invitations to swank parties and earning enough to make one's car payment are easy achievements to come by. Thousands will tell you just the opposite.

The film is a lovely fantasy, and nothing more. Enjoy it for that. If you want to move to LA, do it for realistic reasons, such as the epic freeway car chases, occasional earthquakes and fantastic Mexican restaurants...not for show biz, and not because of anything you saw in LaLa Land.

Hipster

So I am home from the hospital after having surgery on my hip. The surgery itself was pretty much a walk in the park, other than the usual crappy feelings when coming out of anesthesia (that uncomfortable place of wanting to wake up and being unable to do so completely, strangely the feeling I also have when watching this year's political debates).

I haven't documented much about my hip pain because it was tedious enough to be living through without having to write about it. My homesteading activities, garden and job were the places I went to avoid the pain. But suffice to say, it's been going on for two years with no less than six doctors attempting to find out what the issue is. And so while I haven't written about it, it's definitely been a constant companion, with me more than even my husband has been. Pain is there when you're in the shower, sleeping, driving and shopping. It really is the bad relative you can't get rid of, because it lives inside you.

Anyway, my first doctor (local orthopedist) took two x-rays, declared me arthritis-free and sent me to five months of physical therapy, which in hindsight was not only unnecessary, but probably made things worse.

My second doctor was heading the physical therapy department; she helped me a LOT with pain management, but unfortunately could do nothing about the original pain, which she termed "sacrolitic dysfunction." This term is what a more recent doctor (Orthopedist #2) angrily called a "magic box," where no real diagnostics happens and people just learn to live with pain they should be seeking the origin of.

So the next doctor was my primary care doc, who really did care, but could not diagnose the problem either (more x-rays though). His solution was a prescription NSAID which helped the pain somewhat, but did nothing to alleviate the origin of it.

And here's the funniest thing: One of the main symptoms ( which to me was the elephant in the room) was a large, moveable knot at the base of one of my "back dimples" that everyone insisted was "just inflammation." More on that next.

By this time a year had gone by, and I was unable to do many things I used to be able to do -- carry a case of wine to a customer's car, hike up any trail with hills (99 percent of trails around here have hills), sleep well, or do any serious gardening tasks, like shoveling. Oh, I'd do them, but I'd pay dearly in terms of pain for the next day (or six).

And so I finally got fed up and drove two and a half-hours to an orthopedist in Fresno I'd seen who had fixed a torn meniscus in my knee about 10 years ago. He took one look at the lump on my back dimple and said, "well this is most likely a benign growth that will need to come off." Not inflammation, not "sacrolitic dysfunction"...a physical growth. A tumor of some kind, pressing on the nerve that runs through your hip and down your leg. That was the ultimate origin of the hip pain.

I had an MRI, then another one, and then was referred to a cohort of my ortho-guy (who, due to his kick-ass expertise and can-do attitude I now look at the way some young girls look at Justin Beiber -- sheer, unadulterated idol worship) to rule out the tumor itself being caused by a spine issue. The spinal surgeon recommended a general surgeon. And so on the appointments went. By this time I was coming up on two years of pain, but at least 1) they knew what it was and 2) there was a plan in the works to fix it.

So my general surgeon operated on me this morning. Already I can tell there is a huge difference. He removed two benign growths (one hiding and not visible to either man or machine), each one the size of a golf ball. For two years, those two tumors had been altering my gait, my mobility, my joy in life, you name it.

I'm home and resting now, two "golf balls"  lighter and feeling 100 percent better. It's been a long road in getting here, and I'm incredibly thankful to have finally arrived at a healing point. 

But the moral of the story is this: Never be afraid to get a second, or third, or forth opinion if you feel you're possibly being marginalized, your symptoms dismissed, or patronized to based on your age, your sex, or anything else. I will say this without any doubt: Doctor #1 treated me like an old person who has to "learn to live" with a certain amount of pain. Doctor #2 did care, but I sometimes got the impression that he felt some woman-sensitivity might be the cause of my pain, and was therefore not aggressive so much about finding its source, instead attempting to just alleviate the symptoms. Physical Therapy Doc was lovely, but, same problem -- manage the pain, don't worry about the cause. 

All three of those doctors are good people who, ultimately might have crippled me by not treating what was actually wrong.

If you live in a small city, find a doctor in a big city who 1) sees more unusual cases, and 2) has medicine as the center of their life. Many of our doctors here on the coast do NOT move here to practice medicine -- they move here to paddle board, sail, wine taste and live the easy life. These are not the doctors you want. You want the ambitious, driven, curious and caring doctors who publish papers, want to establish good practices, and gain respect and importance in their respective medical communities. Occasionally they can be brusque, arrogant and opinionated. But they have a passion for medicine and problem solving, and will not give up until they find what is wrong with you and fix it, whether you are 18 to 88.

From a healing place, I hope you're well. I'm happy to say I am!

Master (Gardener) Class

Yesterday was the first day of school for the Master Gardener certification course I am taking this spring. Although we learned a lot about botany in this first class, it was also a chance for people to do the typical round-robin style introductions to the group so we could all get to know each other.

I was surprised how many people talked about their beginning attempts at gardening, and, like me, most began digging in the dirt well before the age of 10. It seems the urge to grow things is pretty much a pre-existing condition for a certain segment of the population. I also noticed that for every person who started gardening in childhood, the urge to plant and grow hit them regardless of where they lived -- whether that was in New York City or the wilds of Montana. 

Stories of attempts to grow everything from corn to pansies in city yards were discussed laughingly by the urban-born folks, and those born in similar circumstances nodded their heads vigorously in understanding as these stories were shared. Alongside the gardening stories were also tales of career successes in places like the Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Phoenix, and the flight from them as acreage was purchased and lifelong dreams were chased down and caught (for some reason, dreams always have to be chased to some extent, they are never handed freely to us). People talked about what ultimately mattered most to them: To farm. To grow. To become what they always knew they were supposed to be.

It's interesting the many bends and turns that the road to our destiny takes us, and what we sometimes have to do first in order to eventually get to where we know we need to be. And I can't help but wonder how many others were "called" to this life, but for whatever reason, where unable to make it here. Are they still in the city, unable to leave because of costs, burdens and responsibilities? Or just fear of the unfamiliar? It's a poignant thing to look at where you are now and realize others may have tried and failed to find their way to where you stand, losing the trail of breadcrumbs only to end up back where they started, in an unending circle.

I'm sure there is another corollary to this; a tale of a rural-born "out in the sticks" kind of kid who, from birth, longed for the city -- the art museums, symphony halls, late night jazz clubs, and hustle and bustle on the sidewalk. I hope those folks eventually "home" as well, in all the great cities of the world. 

For me, after so many years of feeling passionate about growing things both edible and admirable, it felt good to be in a roomful of about 40 others who felt exactly like I did -- the lucky ones who made it out of what we thought of as a kind of Egypt, into the Land of Milk and Honey.  That's the key...to find your people, find your environment, and run down that dream, capture it and lock it down in a half-Nelson, whatever it is and whatever its locale.

I am looking forward to learning not only more about farming and gardening, but also about these people, as new lives take shape and new skills are mastered. Because once the dream is captured you start a whole new chapter, with its own challenges, changes and problems. The dream come true is not the ending of the story book, but rather the beginning.

The salvation of country life

I recently re-activated my subscription to Ancestry.com and have once again been spending time with those who came before me. This time around I'm focusing on my U.K. ancestors, since I am a first generation American on that side and have a lot of family over there, past and present.

I came across a heartbreaking story of my third maternal great-grandmother, a lady named Elizabeth Aylward. Her whole branch of the family originally lived their lives in the rural hamlet of Suffolk, England, as well as Essex County. (I've actually been to Suffolk a few times and it's beautiful.) But when the Industrial Revolution began to gain traction, like thousands of others, Elizabeth made her way to London to live in the city and find work.

Over the years, through census documents, I saw her working as a boot-mender, a silk weaver, and as she grew older and presumably less dexterous, a laundress.

Her life went on in what must have been a dreary and difficult way, earning barely enough to survive and, along with her husband, supporting a family. But it was what happened after her children were gone and her husband died that really got me. 

Elizabeth's "Poor Law" removal and resettlement document.

1881 Census for her section of Bethnel Green Work House. The age of most women there was between 50 - 70.

Elizabeth Aylward ended up at age 70 in one of London's most notorious workhouses -- Bethnal Green -- where she lived out her days doing menial labor until she died.

As I read the sad story of her life, I couldn't help wondering if she ever regretted leaving the clean air and green fields of Suffolk. I can't help but feel that somehow, if she could just have stayed in the country, her life would have been far different. There would have been a community to care for her in her old age (no workhouses were needed in the farm communities, it was a city phenomenon) and life might not have been such a struggle.

But I could be wrong. It could be that she left Suffolk for London partly because she needed to find work that would support her.  In the end I will never know, of course, what choices could have changed her life. But I know when I lived in Los Angeles, I was very familiar with the sensation of how it felt to spend everything you have on rent to a point where you're broke at the end of each and every month with no emergency fund and no savings. And while there are no more work houses, there is certainly economic uncertainty for people who live their lives in cities and spend all of what they earn, month after month, year after year. The cities of the world are, in some spots, glamorous and cosmopolitan, but they extract a high price from those who want to live in them.

For me, my salvation came not from a journey into the city, but a journey out of it. And somehow, I feel that if Elizabeth could just have found her way back to the small town she started in, her life might have ended in a rocking chair by a window under a thatched roof somewhere instead of a brick factory work house, being fed crumbs and living in filth while working until the day she finally dropped dead. 

Elizabeth's greatest challenge, in my opinion, was something that was not her fault at all -- she was born into the era that valued the man-made and technological, the brick and the concrete, over a simple country life, considered by most to be antique and passé in the face of the Machine Era.  And it led her away from that country life to a hardscrabble existence in East London, where at the end of that life she had nothing to show for it -- no savings, no home, and no close-knit community to depend on.

I don't know where the soul of Elizabeth Aylward resides today but I only hope that there are a lot of green trees, fragrant flowers, soft breezes and most importantly, eternal and blissful rest. 

God knows she earned it.

The dollhouse

My friend's dollhouse looks a lot like this one.

This Christmas a friend's little daughter got a dollhouse. It's actually a pretty cool DIY invention, made from a bookcase with holes cut into the shelves for stairs, running from one story to another. So maybe a five-story dollhouse is not realistic, but she absolutely adores it.

I also had a dollhouse as a child, the style of which was not quite realistic for little me, but which I also absolutely adored. It was a one-story, ranch style 1960's house with a big kitchen, fireplace, and large bedrooms. It was totally beyond my 5-year old realm of comprehension because I grew up in a city-style, compact apartment building in the heart of Los Angeles.

The dollhouse of my dreams...and eventual home of my reality.

The dollhouse had beautiful wood credenzas and sideboards and hutches (furniture designed to evoke permanence -- not very moveable, as most apartment furniture must be). There was a large sofa floated in the middle of the living room facing the fireplace, plus a breakfast nook table in addition to the formal dining room. Since we lived in a such a small, shared space we had none of these things, but it spoke of a home I badly wanted. 

Even at a young age sometimes you are conscious of the things you don't have and feel like you were supposed to get, as part of some pre-birth deal with The Creator. But often the contract with said Creator is, in fact correct. You will get the thing(s) you feel like you should have received...but you may have to work to get it for it yourself, much later in life than you'd ever imagined.

I'm not knocking my childhood, indeed I have many happy memories from that neighborhood, which was mostly comprised of houses with stable, long-term families residing in them, unlike our apartments, which had a constantly rotating group of tenants. 

It's interesting to note that my parents could actually well have afforded a house in that same neighborhood, but chose not to live in one, because they thought it was just too much work -- a roof that would eventually need replacing, the carpet and paint they'd have to pay for themselves, a back garden and front yard to mow and tend to, etc. And of course they somehow managed to bring home from the hospital that one kid who felt these things were essential for a happy life. Moí.

My dream come true, in its early form.

That's because if there's ever a kid who belonged in a house rather than an apartment, and indeed in the country rather than the city, it was me. I've known it from the time I was born, which is probably why I glommed onto that ranch dollhouse the way I did. Isn't it funny how sometimes we have to spend the first 30 years of our lives finding our way home? 

Perhaps the dollhouse was a premonition of the future, or maybe just a deep longing brought to life in miniature, but I spent many, many hours creating garden space outside the little doll/ranch house, moving furniture around inside, and dreaming I was actually living within its brick and wood-siding walls.

And so, seeing the little Christmas dollhouse my friend got her daughter made me realize many times you're born knowing where you belong, and you might find it first visualized in a gift, or an afternoon or vacation spent someplace memorable, or even just a picture in a magazine that calls to you and says, "someday."

Check out the rooster on the chimney! 

Who knows, maybe there's a high-rise, multi-story house in my friend's daughter's future. Only time will tell what she gravitates towards and what she sees in her early life that speaks to her. But when those things do speak, both children and parents need to listen and let the little ones walk the path towards their destiny, whether it's a profession, a hobby...or just a nice house with a garden and a sofa by the fireplace.

Reunion

I am 4th from the left, last row back.

So this last weekend I went down to Los Angeles for a reunion of the cast of "American Bandstand," which was a television show I was a regular dancer on from about 1977 - 1979, when I was a teen/young adult. For me, those were the height of my "city" years. We clubbed until dawn, grabbed expresso at all-night coffeehouses, taped the show, and somehow dragged ourselves off to work and college when we weren't doing that....crawling through traffic, living in crappy apartments, eating and drinking in dive bistros and chic eateries and, generally, living life in the fast lane (within which there was usually a traffic jam, so not so fast, really). 

It's familiar...

So how does someone born and raised in the city, well-versed in city life and activities, end up working a homestead in a rural part of the state? That answer was simple: I became who I was supposed to be. Anyone who lives a fundamentally different lifestyle than the one they grew up with knows exactly what I'm talking about. 

Sometimes you just get mailed to the wrong address at birth. It happens.

Yet for those who are raised in those "foreign" environments, we can often learn to be a pretty good mimic where the outside world is concerned. Just like any place you live long enough, you learn the lingo and adopt activities that allow you to fit in. In short, you become the guy in Rome who did as the Romans did. He blended in, in order to survive.

But at some point, your deeper nature will surface, as it did with me at about age 28. I say deeper nature because deep down, I have always belonged in nature or out in the country much more than on on some nightclub floor or 4 a.m. coffeehouse. As a really small child I vividly remember driving out of Los Angeles, over the Grapevine (Interstate 5) into the rolling farmlands of the Central Valley to visit relatives, and feeling like I was coming home. Which, it turns out, was exactly what I was doing -- just 20 years too early. 

but this is Home.

Yet, thankfully, there is no time limit on coming home and no reason why the first place you live should be "home" for you if you don't really feel at home there. Home is where your soul comes to rest. You might find it at birth or age 70, but the later age does not invalidate the fact that its true. Every soul has a compass that points true north (or south, east or west in reality), and until you heed the pull and go to where it's telling you, you will always feel a little out of place, deep down inside you. You may look like the rest of them, but you're not really one of them, and you know it.

And yet, by being born in a land foreign to your soul, you do learn to be a citizen of two worlds. So when I went down to Los Angeles for my reunion weekend, on the outside I fit right in. I like that, and hope I can always do that. To be a citizen of two places surely cannot be anything but a privilege.  But to know which one is home is the true gift. And for me, to head back, out of the city and to a place where I can see the Milky Way at night and there's no hum of the freeway off in the distance is both a tremendous comfort and something that makes me realize how lucky I was to seek -- and to finally find -- Home. 

Goin' Into Town

Most days I write about the simplistic and very romantic perfection that wine country life can be. But there is a price to be paid for all this open space and bucolic pleasure, and that is that in order to have it, you can't live too close to town. 

We actually live 20 miles away from the nearest small town, 60 miles away from the nearest medium-sized one, and 120 miles away from a metropolis large enough to have things like big furniture stores or a Macy's.

The actual reality of the weekly trip into the small town and the twice-yearly trip to the metropolis is one of the things I wish someone had told me about before I moved to the country; while it would not have changed my mind, I certainly would have been less romantic about it. 

For some reason, I saw my in-town days as vignettes, with me strolling the streets of the boutique-y parts of our lovely downtown, stopping at gourmet food stores while maybe sipping a latte and enjoying all the pretty things in the store windows. 

Only that's not really how it is. Going into town for the day really consists of driving to many different large stores on the other end of town, pulling in and out of parking spaces, facing traffic stress and lugging bags of stuff into the car. And it pretty much takes an entire day, if I want to save gas and make it a weekly trip.

And that's the dirty little the secret about rural life:  When you live out of town, your days in town are spent dashing from one place to the next, in order to make the most of your time and gas money. No leisurely strolling here, folks. It's a Supply Replenishment run.

Not my home, but you get the point.  Country here, city way over there.

All this driving does make me appreciate the efforts many urban planners are putting forth to create pedestrian and bike-friendly cities, where residents can actually get the things they need without having to own a car.  But to live in an urban environment as it is now, you have to be willing to give up the biggest pleasures of being out of town: seeing the Milky Way at night, having a property large enough to keep livestock, grow food and have an orchard, and last but not least, being able to be outdoors without the constant drone of lawn mowers, police helicopters, traffic and noisy neighbors.  

That's a huge sacrifice, and not one I'm willing to make right now.

And so, at least at this point, we will continue living out here in the country and just hitch up that old wagon (aka the car) and do a 10-stop Errand Day once a week or so. 

And on those days when I need to head into town, I leave early yet still seem to always get back home later than I'd like.  A much better writer than I am, Robert Frost, once wrote about kind of journey, saying in part:

 "I have errands to run and promises to keep.  And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep."

Sometimes, on the days when I'd rather be here on my quiet hilltop than fighting for parking spaces in town, I would definitely agree with those sentiments.

Sounds

When I lived in the city, I awoke to the hum of the freeway most mornings.  If the city is like a body, the freeway is its circulatory system.  As it rises and and gets moving, the freeway-body responds with increased circulation, which is a kind of whooshing sound that grows louder and more urgent closer it gets to rush hour.  

If I was up really early (or came home very late), I'd see the newspaper delivery truck making its way down the street, throwing the LA Times into the lobbies of all the apartment buildings, just as dawn was breaking behind the skyscrapers to the east. Sometimes the mostly-nocturnal garbage trucks would still be finishing up their rounds and could be heard rattling their way home along the boulevard, fighting for space with the produce delivery trucks, which were outside the restaurants, blinkers on, delivering fresh goods for the day.  There would even be the occasional jangling of a dog leash as some early-riser took their Fido down the sidewalk to a postage stamp-sized patch of dirt near the corner, to do his or her business.

These were sounds that called you to alert, to action, as you dressed, gulped down some coffee and became part of the teeming masses headed into offices in order to Make Things Run, as the sun rose higher and the air warmed.  It was exciting to feel like a part of the machine, but for all the pavement I pounded in my business suit and Reeboks trainers, another life called to me, and after a time I left the city I had grown up in and headed into the suburbs.

The suburbs are different. The noise of the freeway, so much a pulse of the morning in the city, is a dim hum out there.  But at dawn and just after it, there are cars starting all up and down the street and the sounds of children clambering into them and being hauled off to day care or school, with cereal bars or sippy cups clutched in their moist hands. And there are the sounds of morning radio, blaring from the front seat of the same cars, where their parents clutch their own beverage cups and check their briefcases before heading out on their morning missions -- drop off the kids, head into work. 

If you wait another hour or so after that, the suburbs then begin to fill with the sound of the old gardening trucks and their clanky trailers, driven by the Mexican gardeners from  the "other part of town," who will arrive faithfully in the morning and finish their work before the day's heat gets too brutal.  With them come the sounds of lawns being mowed, bushes being clipped, and the ever-present whine of motorized leaf blowers cleaning off the sidewalks when they are done.  Sometimes there are mothers with infants, taking morning walks and pushing strollers along the sidewalks while talking into their cell phones. Sometimes there is birdsong. But most of the time the streets -- and the houses that sit on them -- are empty.

Now I live in the country, and here the sounds are completely predictable, and exactly the same on any morning of the week, whether it's Sunday morning or a Wednesday or a Saturday.  If you are up early enough, you will get to hear the last of the yip-yip-yip coyote songs, as the packs wind down their nights and retreat back into their dens. But more often the day here usually begins with the song of the brown thrasher, who nests in the bushes outside our bedroom window.  He also starts his song well before sunup, beginning just about the time the coyotes are winding down.  

But since he's so early, it's actually possible to roll over and catch another hour of sleep before the rest of the dawn chorus starts up, singing as they begin making their way down from the trees to start their day.  The roosters on all the other farms around us crow to greet the day, and all manner of animals can be heard calling out as their owners push wheelbarrows full with their morning rations towards their pastures and stalls - cow, sheep, goat and horse.

It's not a rush hour as much as a routine; everyone makes their own noises, everyone eats, and then everyone goes about their day. 

After about 9 a.m., the only sounds are birdsong, and the occasional call of the hawk or eagle floating high overhead.  But mostly, it's silent. Silence.  Such a strange concept after all those years of cities and suburbs.

I have lived through many mornings, in many places and in many parts the world.  Sure, I have my preferences, but I can also see the beauty and unique hope held within the mornings of all these places where I've called home and where I've stumbled out of bed and to the coffee pot.  

Every one of these places has its own symphony, and you need only be mindful to see the beauty in all of them.