Country Girl at Heart

Anyone who knows me - I mean really knows me, not just one or two meetings - knows I'm a country girl deep down.....maybe country girly girl is a better description. But no matter, I would 100 million billion zillion times rather be laying in a hammock, surrounded by cornfields and open land, an apple orchard on my right and a garden pond on my left, reading a good book in 75 degree weather with blue skies and fluffy clouds above me, than walking in a busy city, riding a subway, living in a high-rise apartment, and yes, even shopping in a crowded mall. The hardest adjustment by far living in DC is not having any open space; feeing like people are always crowding my space on sidewalks and driving on roads. The few parks that have grassy land are either a) not safe for me to go alone, b) have piles of dog poop every few feet, or c) are too overrun with other people trying to escape city life that it feels like a city itself!

The past two weeks I spent on vacation back home in Ohio and I can truly say I enjoyed every minute. I could drive from point A to point B without sitting in traffic going 10 mph; I fell asleep with my bedroom window open listening to a pond fountain, crickets chirping, and bull frogs singing; I rode my bike around town without fear of being rundown by crazy drivers swerving into the bike lane in an attempt to create 3 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road; and I breathed. I mean I really breathed in fresh air....not air polluted with the disgusting smell of the Potomac River, exhaust fumes from idling tour buses, and humid smoggy air that weighs heavy on the city like a wool blanket. People who aren't from Ohio make fun of it for having lots of cornfields and not being famous for anything too exciting, but those of us who were born and raised there know it's genuine midwestern kindness and room to breathe that makes it a great state. I don't need a museum every 10 feet and dozens of cement monuments to make life fulfilling. Who cares that DC is where our nation's president lives - no one sees him outside anyways!

DC might be great for some people, but it's not for me. Just because I like to shop and I don't particularly care for spiders doesn't mean I don't belong in the country ~ it just makes me a special country girly girl :)