Same same but different
Moving out of the city is always a challenge. It’s one thing to move from one city to another, even from one country to another, but it is an entirely different thing to move to the countryside from the city, or in my case, the province.
I’ve lived in the province before and to be completely honest, though I’ve lived most of my adult life in cities, I have always wanted to make that move to the countryside and live off the land and off the grid. One of my all-time favorite books growing up was Little House on the Prairie, of which I still have copies. Now, I’m far from being a hippie of any sort, but it was more of the self-reliance, which that sort of lifestyle brings, that attracted me to it. The closer to the source of things it seemed — your food, your work, the energy for your home, your shelter — the more it appealed to me as the way I aim to live my life. Does it sound a little kooky? Yeah it probably does, but to be honest, I’m old enough not to care.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the conveniences living in the city brings. All night takeout and delivery, fast food, your friends or just being able to go out at all hours to be lost. Moving to the province or countryside, you willingly leave these little conveniences behind and as romantic as the initial notion was of living off the land like the pilgrims did in America, finding out where or learning how to make the things you needed, it’s not a romantic idea up close. More than anything, it looks a lot more like hard work.
I have always wanted to move to the countryside and live off the land and off the grid.
I’ve learned that this hard work is more about putting some effort in doing things, or even just meeting new people. Usually when you’re coming into a new city, there are groups that you “join” or are introduced to, and usually because it is the city, these social groups are fluid, and members can flow from one group to another. In the countryside and/ or province, this isn’t the case. There is a set group of people and it is usually hard to penetrate. This is not to say that they are snobbish or clique-ish in any way, okay maybe a little, but it is because it is usually a relatively small community and everyone you meet knew each other since high school. I could say the same I guess when you move into a new city and meet a new set of friends, but they usually don’t go back quite that far, or if they do, they’re family friends of some sort. When moving into the countryside or province, things are deliberate. Movements you make have meaning, and fast and efficient does not always mean something good. There is a social dance that you do here that you cannot do in the city, and it is almost like you are practicing the languid movements of a “ligawan,” trying to discern what your new friends’ next reactions will be without actually asking outright. Things need to take time, most especially conversations. There are times that stories are repeated, four to five times, every time you get together as a foundation of what will become the theme of the afternoon or evening’s, talk.
And thus you go forth and converse with all the time in the world, watching sunsets and the evening creep in, without the frenzy you feel when you’re doing a sunset session in a bar in the middle of the city. Here it is slow, appreciated, and it’s like you roll it around your mind as you would to wine in your palate to expose its bouquet. I guess going fast doesn’t appeal to me anymore as being deliberate.