The Soullessness of City Life

Today came our first spring rain. With it came a piece of my soul that I hadn't realized was missing. I grew up on a seven-acre farm in a little town called Savage, Maryland. My sisters and I wandered all about the place, free to do or wear whatever we wished without having to worry about neighbors or passers-by catching sight of our antics. We also reveled in the beauty and freedom of nature. We watched as the woods, groves and fields changed with the seasons and with the years. At eighteen, hoping to become an actress, I moved to Los Angeles. I loved the big city: the people, the lights, the energy. It was so exciting to be a part of the place where the rich and famous lived and history was made. After deciding movie-making wasn't for me, I moved several more times, eventually ended up in New Mexico. I went there in order to be with my sweetie, who owned a business in Santa Fe. For several years, we lived behind his office located on the main thoroughfare, smack in the busiest part of the business district. However, the character and beauty of the rest of Santa Fe made up for our industrial-based locale. When my sweetie chose to move his business south to a town called Moriarty, I followed. We set up shop on a business strip just west of the town. Although we planted trees and created a lovely garden in front of our house, nothing could hide the presence of Interstate 40 on the north side of the property and Route 66 on the south. Seventeen years later (including two years of separation in which I lived in Cochran, Georgia in a house with train tracks nearby), my sweetie and I finally bought and moved into a house in Edgewood, a town west of Moriarty. Our new house, although an older house with requisite issues due to its age, sits on twenty-five acres of wild, wooded, GORGEOUS New Mexico countryside surrounded by panoramic views and several mountain ranges. For the first time in over two decades, I have no visible neighbors, no nearby roads, and no sounds other than those of nature. This morning, sitting on my covered porch, dressed only in my pajamas, drinking coffee and listening to the rain fall on the roof, I realized I felt happy, blessed, and content in a way I haven't felt since my childhood. At last, my soul is whole again.