"It's actually cleaner than I expected. And you're generalizing, aren't you? You haven't even met many residents. They might be lovely people." (I'm usually pretty Pollyanna about things.)
He looked at me as if I was also clearly crazy. "Sane people wouldn't put up with this!" He waved his hand at the traffic, the noise, the crowds (and also, I'm pretty sure, the inflated prices).
I laughed. "You know how many people say that about where we live, right?"
I have several loved ones who have waged a years long battle to convince me to move elsewhere, or at least to get with the program and consider my home state to be a punch line. I know that they sincerely want what's best for me, so I cut them slack, but it grates on my nerves.
For one thing, I sincerely like my area. We're high mountain desert, tucked up against a mountain range; everything from the wide open sand and sage of the Great Basin to the pine forests overlooking deep mountain lakes says "home" to me. It's pretty fantastic.
I like my house. It's comfortable and cost effective. I am intensely irritated by people who think that I'm living my life in the way that I am because I'm unaware that there are other options.
Recently, a friend moved to a new city, and asked for advice on her social media. "We're considering two houses. One is larger and less expensive, but the area isn't considered as desirable. The other is more money than we wanted to spend, but it's in a popular area. Which should we buy?" I think that I was the lone voice saying, "The less expensive house! Obviously!" Everyone else voted for the more expensive house, saying things like, "Think of the resale value!" and telling her that, obviously, the neighbors and the schools would be better in the popular area.
(They finally chose a third house that split the difference.)
People are frequently perplexed by our choice of a fixer upper in an aging neighborhood - not old enough to be "historic," just old enough to be "older." I say, "Hey, I'd rather live here and take my kids on vacation and send them to summer camp." I've been told that I'm doing things "all wrong." "It's more important to spend the money on something you'll use every day, not on something that only lasts for a week or two."
Balderdash. I can show you studies that verify that spending money on experiences instead of belongings results in a happier life, but I don't need them to justify my choices. I am happy in my life.
A friend was once trying to describe what she loved about living in a large city. "In my neighborhood, when I go to get coffee, or shop, or have lunch, the people working there know me, and I get personalized service." I responded, "That sounds like living in a small town." The last time I lived in a truly small town (it made the front page of the tri-county newspaper when we got our second stoplight), when I was buying groceries the cashier said, "That shed's looking pretty good!" My husband was building a shed in our yard, one visible from the road, but I have no idea how the clerk knew that I lived at the house with the shed under construction.
My friend was sure that I was deliberately misunderstanding her. I don't think so; in my city, when I go to the bank, the grocery store, the convenience store, and several restaurants, they know me, often by name. Sometimes, I will have known them for literally decades. I don't think that the size of my city has any bearing on that.
Of course, there are other conversations and other tactics.
"It's such a shame for your kids," to be living here, I was told.
"How do you figure?"
"They're never going to be exposed to different people from different backgrounds. Where you are, it's pretty homogenous; everyone's the same."
I have no idea where that mischaracterization came from. I went to church with a significant number of Tongans with names like Feofa'aki. My daughter's boyfriend was Navajo, and her best friend was from El Salvador. We'd planned birthday party menus to include Hindu, Muslim and Jewish guests. I know lawyers, accountants, ranchers, artists, singers, right here in my community.
I tried to encapsulate all of that in one sentence, without sounding like I was trotting people out as show ponies ("How can you say that? Look at my Token Minority friend!"), and speaking to the experiences of my kids. "My daughter is the only white girl in her Girl Scout troop."
"Well, yes, but I'm talking about professional, educated people."
Um, what? This is a lovely, sincere, well educated person, who always means well, but I was appalled. "Oh, I just know that you did not just imply that their parents are all dishwashers and maids, or that there would be anything wrong with it if they were!"
"No! No. I'm just saying that people in my community have been recruited from all over the world for their particular areas of expertise."
"Do you know what my Scouts' parents do? Because I don't, and I see them every week." This is true; I have actually known people for years before I find out what they do for a living.
I meet a lot of people at church or doing community theater, and we tend to "talk shop," not go through the cocktail party small talk of, "So, what do you do?" I rarely ask this of people. Sometimes, I'm taken by surprise when I find out.
The girls in the Scout troops I led always had parents who took their cookie order forms to work, and sometimes I'd find out what they did for a living based on where they made their sales. On year, the top seller had a (very pretty) mother who was a bartender, and made her sales at the bar. ("And if they don't pick up the cookies, I know I can just sell them to somebody else who's there.") One year, the top seller had a grandmother who worked at a local brothel, and made her sales there. No, I didn't ask in what capacity, although I know that they have non-prostitute staff. I once did theater with a young lady who was the cashier at a brothel.
No, I did not bring up the brothel workers at that point in the conversation. No, I do not think that they prove my loved one's point. No, I did not point out that the area in which this person lived in is known for a particular industry, and therefore more "homogenous" than many other communities, in that you can probably accurately guess what industry in which any person you meet is likely to be employed. I did not point out that when I'm sitting in church in between the owner of a construction business and the owner of a potato farm, listening to a schoolteacher give the lesson, I'm simultaneously experiencing diversity and not categorizing people based on occupation or education.
What I did was rather forcefully change the subject. This is a relationship that I truly value, but if I'm expected to be a job snob and feel that I'm shortchanging my kids by refusing to be badgered into moving to a sprawling metropolis, well, I may start to value it less.
Someone else described me to myself this way - "You're so... so... provincial!"
(You know how sometimes you make a friend, and you laugh together about how you never would have hung out when you were in high school? Yeah - I'm aware that people who love me, but met me when we were kids, would probably not be interested in making friends with me if they met me today. That's OK. We love each other anyway.)
I enjoy visiting large cities in order to experience museums, theaters, historic sites and the like, but then I want to leave and go home.
Something I discovered as an adult, and it was a pleasant surprise, is that I could conceivably live anywhere. I pick up real estate guides every time I travel. We recently spent time in cities older than my nation, staying in apartments, and commenting, "I could live here." I may live somewhere else in the future; but it won't be because I don't like it here, where I am now.
Why am I thinking about this? I was sorting through and organizing photos recently, and I came across this:
Oh, yeah. This image is comfortable, happy - it says "home." It lowers my blood pressure. I could live down that road. Looking at it, I know what it smells like, sounds like, feels like. I want to know what's over the horizon. I want to wander and explore.
That's in contrast to how I feel looking at this image:
I also know what this sounds, smells and feels like; I took both photos. I know that there are places to discover, to eat, to shop. I could conceivable live there. But, given a choice - not so much.
Given a choice, I'll probably always take the dirt road.
