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When someone asked, "So, do you live in the country?" I didn't know how to respond. My mother in-law said, "You're surrounded by fields, and sheep, of course you live in the country."

Many have come before me, so where I live is not my property but the land.

We are, each, just visitors.

It's mostly grass, but every day there is something new.

It breathes.

It moves.

Moving and Unpacking

I have moved, but I have not unpacked the boxes.

After living in St. Paul for the better part of 20 years, my family and I loaded up the truck and moved to Central Minnesota. It's not the end of the world...that would be the next freeway exit.

We are out in the country, kind of, in a house that sits on five acres. That amount of acreage is expansive to me after having a backyard barely big enough to hold three consecutive cartwheels.

So we are here, and I thought I would miss my Grand Avenue: Thomas Liquor, Whole Foods, Coffee News, Dunn Bros...OK, I miss Dunn Bros. That is good coffee. I thought I would miss walking down to the River, jogging to Ford Parkway, driving to Ft. Snelling for a quick nine. But I don't.

I walk the land here almost everyday, and almost everyday I see something new. This past week, the birds have shown themselves for the first time this Spring. Among them are Sand Hill Cranes. They seem to be nesting in the area and come to the neighboring field to feed. I have never seen anything like them before. They are prehistoric in size, flight, and sound. Check 'em out on the Cornell Lab website: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Sandhill_Crane.html
Hauntingly beautiful, and better than cable.

It's good to be on the land, but I will say that the move has taken some getting used to. After spending the first few fitful nights worrying about the sound of the furnace, the sound of the water softener, and the likelihood of a reenactment of In Cold Blood, I am making peace with the place. It is still and that stillness suits me. It is getting in to me. To make room for the quiet, I am trying to discard the worry and paniced pace brought on by a 70 mile commute. I am relearning how to be where I am instead of where I might be next. Whether I'm painting, stripping wallpaper, or grading papers, I am trying to do just that. It's not always easy. I find that I work for a while and then I begin to push, as if forcing tasks forward from the inside out well help. I learned this behavior effectively by practicing it for the past ten years. It will take some time and concentration to unlearn it.

So I have moved, and I have begun to unload. The boxes? They can wait.

A Long December

“A Long December”

I like the song “A Long December” by Counting Crows a lot, but I think it’s hard to write about a song, a poem, or a piece of art that matters to me without sounding overly sentimental, without saying, “I love this song man… It speaks to me…No, I mean it really speaks to me… It’s like Adam Duritz knew exactly what I was thinking when he wrote it man.” (Thump chest and insert ‘rock on’ sign here.) The reality is, though, whether I listen to the song on a CD, iPod, or computer, or watch the video on YouTube, it does get inside me. Every time I hear the song I sing along, sure, but more than that, I am hit by the images and memories that it stirs.

The song is dark, no doubt, but I live in Minnesota, and I have experienced my share of long Decembers, so I know something of which Duritz speaks. December in Minnesota is where the sun comes to die, dark and cold, cold and dark, lower and slower. Depressing? It can be. Having plowed through winters and depression, however, I have little affinity for the gloominess in the song. Instead, I hear the hopeful lyric, the maybe, and I sing it over and over like a prayer:

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her
And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

Why wouldn’t I think that? Why wouldn’t I choose to believe that this year will be better, and next year will be better, and each year after that will be better than the last? I’m not saying that last year was bad. No. Last year was good, but this year, next year…better. This is me dreaming, hoping, and hanging on to a vision of what might be because as I live through my mid 40s I see how the day-to-day stuff can fog up the long view.

I realize that A Long December isn’t all fun and games. There is a longing in the song too, and I feel that. As I listen, I reflect on what I have not been able to do, and remember what has passed:

And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven... I wish you would
The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl
And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California... I think you should

I hear these words and remember the two weeks I spent in Los Angeles: an afternoon with a friend from college, an evening party in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city, hot tubs at three in the afternoon. I remember past lives, past transgressions, the desire to be forgiven and the realization that the most pure and powerful absolution directed at me begins with me. And those thoughts are hope –filled. Hospitals in winter? Oysters and no pearls? Yup. But then, just before I might begin to wallow, I look up To see the way that light attaches to a girl. For me, this is an image of radiance, amber and warm, which I experience as hope.

It’s February, 2008. I have survived another long December and January too. For me there is no maybe about it. This year will be, and already has been, better than the last.

(If it's been a long December since you've heard the song or seen the video, here's the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNF1a-ZG1uc)