GROUNDED

The past two weeks have been very busy for us.  Well, actually the whole summer has, but it’s the recent past that has me thinking today.

We live in a particular part of heaven called rural Saskatchewan.  Don’t laugh; beauty is in the senses of the beholder.  You may well consider where you live to be a slice of heaven too – I hope you do – but as for myself, there is nowhere on the planet I would rather live than here.

Even so.  Even though I feel this way.  Even as I appreciate the seasons, relish the colors, take in great deep breaths of fresh air, and watch successive sunsets bring to a close our happy, fulfilling days, sometimes my wonder at being so lucky to live here fades into complacency.  I begin to take it all for granted.

The cure for this is to look upon it with fresh eyes.  Over the past two weeks we have had visitors from far away cities, and through conversations with them I have come to hit the ‘refresh’ button on the value of living here.  It wasn’t that we sat and compared our lifestyles or argued about who had it better.  It wasn’t like that at all.  Everyone involved was quite satisfied with their lives; where they lived, and what they chose to do with their time.  It’s just that as we sat on our deck and looked out over the fields, or drove our dusty summer roads, or wandered around the yard and gardens, I was given the chance to see these treasures from a different perspective.

Things like how far away our closest neighbors live.  This is no big deal to us – it’s a mile, or two, depending which direction you’re talking about – but for each of them this is phenomenal.  Where they live the houses almost touch.  They need shades on their windows for privacy, not just to keep the sunlight out.  They lock all their doors all the time.  Their dogs are always on a leash. 

Questions like “How far away is your property line?” came up.  And when the answer was given, the next question was “What do you mean by ‘quarter section’?”  Out came the municipal map to explain that term, and then we were into things like ‘grid road system’ and ‘main farm access’.  In the very different worlds of Southern Ontario and Connecticut, USA these were alien terms.

The most alien thing for them, though, was the quiet.  No traffic noises, no machinery, no sirens, no voices other than our own and the occasional coyote.  When we lapsed into silence all there was left to hear was the whirring of hummingbird wings.

Of course, there is the other side of the coin.  Cities have such a wide variety of shops and services – how fun would it be to just wander and browse and shop on any given afternoon just because you have an hour or two?  Take in a movie on the spur of a moment?  Enjoy a choice of parks or pools or museums? 

And where they live they are only a call or a click away from a hundred choices of takeout food or delivery to the door, a luxury I dream of often.   

Then again, if that is such a thrill, why did our visitors from Calgary make such a fuss over picking and shelling their own peas?  How much fun did they derive from ‘snitching’ new potatoes for supper?  What was the big deal over the fresh garden lettuce and sliced cucumbers.  This, apparently, is not one of the 100 menu options available to them in the big city.  Our regular summer fare was applauded as a very special treat …. Or was that the fried green tomatoes the men cooked up while we waited for the farm chicken to finish roasting?

It’s been such a busy time I’m really not sure which of our guests mentioned reading about how humans benefit from walking barefoot of the earth.  How being skin-to-grass helps us connect with the Earth.  How we all need to be more grounded and that studies had been done that showed such a physical connection improved our well being.

I spend a good portion of my summer barefoot: that may go a long way to explaining why I love where I live so much.