And then comes the country winter, with its majestic, sweeping calligraphies of snow just sitting there on silent show, gleaming with sunlight for days and weeks in tree- and stubble- and furrow- and grove-shaped whiteness-impeccable sculptures, and the blue-blue air is so big that the snow show is but a small part of it all, and not in the way, as it is in the city where pretty soon after snow falls and makes headlines it gets slushy and ugly or dangerously icy; country snow, soft and plush, is by contrast a big down comforter mother nature always throws over the countryside about this time, and whereas in the city the snow merely treacherizes pedestrians and vehicularians, and taxes the sewage system with often excessive volumes of what is called "runoff," in the country snow has actual natural functions, among others of insulating the soil from the chill of late winter and watering it in spring the way spring is in the country, for in the country spring is exactly where it belongs, its green songs up out of the ground swelling in time into chorales of wildflowers and all kinds of random demonstrations of the beauty nature can build if left on its own, the way it is out in the country.
Edited: bhw
Article comments
1 - Sister Ray
There are trade-offs. Cities have employment, cultural and educational opportunites (and even "real birds"). I like living someplace with libraries that are open on Sunday, museums, cinemas, music and film festivals, religious diversity, etc. That was my choice. Doesn't mean I hate sunsets.
Plus, if everybody moved to the country it would turn into cookie-cutter suburbia any wouldn't be country anymore.
2 - Nancy
Yah - that's what's happened in my neck of the woods: the entire area for hundreds of miles around DC is turning into one gigantic bedroom community of McMansions, punctuated by strip malls, business 'parks', and the occasional 10 sq. acres of parkland that exists only because it's been designated as a historical site. And as it is, the damned developers probably tried to pave it over to make a car dealership.
3 - Bennett
Beautiful piece Robert. I too live "way out" in the country. I don't encorage folks to move away from the cities, it isn't for everyone. But if you dreamed of chickens and cows and lush gardens as a child, don't wait!
The joys of watching your very own forest grow tall over ten or twenty years, as you thin out the overcrowded second growth to transform your proprty into a private Golden Gate Park...
Hard to beat! Thanks for this post!
4 - Terry Walsh.
I live in a town in the North of England but need a regular fix of country. I only need to drive about 25 miles to be in stunning countryside and I head for the hills every week searching out little used country roads and shady lanes, just me and my camera, magic.