I moved from NYC to a small Midwestern town back in 2021; last July I moved some five miles outside of town to the country (minimum of one mile of dirt roads to get to paved by any route). Many of my houseguests since have been from similarly rural living conditions and so it goes unremarked, but when friends from DC or NYC or other urban areas visit, they also remark on the silence at least once. I sleep somewhat less well, though, because the raccoons make weekly attempts on the chickens and I have to be prepared to defend the animals I have more responsibility for from those I have somewhat less.
Wouldn't trade it. And happy to have a nice comfortable coffee shop less than 15 minutes away to go write at.
Oh, man, the predators. I spent the whole first year here sleeping with one eye open. We have bears, cougars, coyotes, bald eagles (and several other kinds if raptors), and wolves. Had more than a few camp raids until I got a second dog--even now we occasionally lose a chicken to one critter or another. Constant battle. But at least with the dogs I always get an alarm call that wakes me up if one of the mammal predators is around.
There have been mornings when I have gone out in the we hours dressed only in a shotgun and shoes to run off a bear or two...
We're fortunate not to have any predators larger than coyotes around here, but so far it is always the raccoons. Just bought a shotgun a few weeks ago because they tree themselves so often and arrows are expensive and easy to lose in the dark. Not gonna be shooting a rifle or pistol up into a tree.
Oh, my. I think of this often. I used to be very good with noise. I've stayed at home for 28 years while raising my sons and taking care of my oldest who won't ever leave home. When they were little, I was used to the noise and I went out a lot. I don't go anywhere for months in a row now. I tell myself I'm happy this way, but I have one single thing I haven't overcome to prove it to myself. I have to be reading, cooking, listening, talking (to myself, yes sometimes) and even listening to YouTube history, mystery, unexplained, or conspiracy videos to sleep. It got worse after my mom died at 51. I was 35 and the oldest person left on that side of my family. It's so important. The silence. But, it scares me to death.
One of the joys of writing, which I didn't realize when I started doing it in earnest in my teens, is that it forces you to wrestle with that choir of voices. The old saw that "Art is therapy" is really true, as is the one that says "Writing is thinking."
We're not quite that far out as you are, but the wife's family is from rural *Missouruh* and they've got a coupla hundred acres of farmland surrounded by more hectares of farmland in every direction. We go there on the weekends - when we're not kayaking or fishing on a lake, or hiking in the woods. The Missus is a naturalist and we're just timing the jump from exurbia to Solitude. #TheVoicesinmyheadAreDoingJustFine,thankyouverymuch.
I do miss the city, but there's no way I could ever go back. For me the winning formula is to live out here in the middle of nowhere, then visit the city sometimes and get my fix of its throbbing energy.
There's little to compare with the deep mental stimulation one gets from being surrounded by nature.
Yup. There's a Wisdom there that is lost in the specialization of city living. You can live like an insect for more cheese and miss all of the profound Truths that being in Nature inevitably imparts. We're in the middle of America, so it's not like we're dominated by cities, but the tendrils of city living extend themselves farther and farther out all the time. We're already at the outer edges of that in Kansas, so it's not far before you're in the prairies and farmland with nothing but cattle or empty, rolling fields forever... part of the Great Colorado Plain. Much of same to the south - east or west - and it suits me just fine.
I kind of live in low-grade fear that my area will see some kind of boom in the next ten years (there are dead industries that a nearby city is trying to bring back). Would be economically great, but…you know, I kinda like how dead it is.
Exactly. The town we plan on fleeing to has now blossomed to 1300. It gets some tourism in summer because of a local lake, but even that doesn’t add more stores or the like - just helps out the locals for a brief surge. It’s a looong way from a highway, which seems to help.
We're three hours from the nearest big city, and we're not on a main transit route, so I have a not-unjustified hope that there is only so much growth that could happen, even if all three dead industries came roaring back at once.
I moved from NYC to a small Midwestern town back in 2021; last July I moved some five miles outside of town to the country (minimum of one mile of dirt roads to get to paved by any route). Many of my houseguests since have been from similarly rural living conditions and so it goes unremarked, but when friends from DC or NYC or other urban areas visit, they also remark on the silence at least once. I sleep somewhat less well, though, because the raccoons make weekly attempts on the chickens and I have to be prepared to defend the animals I have more responsibility for from those I have somewhat less.
Wouldn't trade it. And happy to have a nice comfortable coffee shop less than 15 minutes away to go write at.
Oh, man, the predators. I spent the whole first year here sleeping with one eye open. We have bears, cougars, coyotes, bald eagles (and several other kinds if raptors), and wolves. Had more than a few camp raids until I got a second dog--even now we occasionally lose a chicken to one critter or another. Constant battle. But at least with the dogs I always get an alarm call that wakes me up if one of the mammal predators is around.
There have been mornings when I have gone out in the we hours dressed only in a shotgun and shoes to run off a bear or two...
We're fortunate not to have any predators larger than coyotes around here, but so far it is always the raccoons. Just bought a shotgun a few weeks ago because they tree themselves so often and arrows are expensive and easy to lose in the dark. Not gonna be shooting a rifle or pistol up into a tree.
A dog is in the future plans.
Oh, my. I think of this often. I used to be very good with noise. I've stayed at home for 28 years while raising my sons and taking care of my oldest who won't ever leave home. When they were little, I was used to the noise and I went out a lot. I don't go anywhere for months in a row now. I tell myself I'm happy this way, but I have one single thing I haven't overcome to prove it to myself. I have to be reading, cooking, listening, talking (to myself, yes sometimes) and even listening to YouTube history, mystery, unexplained, or conspiracy videos to sleep. It got worse after my mom died at 51. I was 35 and the oldest person left on that side of my family. It's so important. The silence. But, it scares me to death.
One of the joys of writing, which I didn't realize when I started doing it in earnest in my teens, is that it forces you to wrestle with that choir of voices. The old saw that "Art is therapy" is really true, as is the one that says "Writing is thinking."
We're not quite that far out as you are, but the wife's family is from rural *Missouruh* and they've got a coupla hundred acres of farmland surrounded by more hectares of farmland in every direction. We go there on the weekends - when we're not kayaking or fishing on a lake, or hiking in the woods. The Missus is a naturalist and we're just timing the jump from exurbia to Solitude. #TheVoicesinmyheadAreDoingJustFine,thankyouverymuch.
May your jump prove successful!
I do miss the city, but there's no way I could ever go back. For me the winning formula is to live out here in the middle of nowhere, then visit the city sometimes and get my fix of its throbbing energy.
There's little to compare with the deep mental stimulation one gets from being surrounded by nature.
Yup. There's a Wisdom there that is lost in the specialization of city living. You can live like an insect for more cheese and miss all of the profound Truths that being in Nature inevitably imparts. We're in the middle of America, so it's not like we're dominated by cities, but the tendrils of city living extend themselves farther and farther out all the time. We're already at the outer edges of that in Kansas, so it's not far before you're in the prairies and farmland with nothing but cattle or empty, rolling fields forever... part of the Great Colorado Plain. Much of same to the south - east or west - and it suits me just fine.
I kind of live in low-grade fear that my area will see some kind of boom in the next ten years (there are dead industries that a nearby city is trying to bring back). Would be economically great, but…you know, I kinda like how dead it is.
Exactly. The town we plan on fleeing to has now blossomed to 1300. It gets some tourism in summer because of a local lake, but even that doesn’t add more stores or the like - just helps out the locals for a brief surge. It’s a looong way from a highway, which seems to help.
We're three hours from the nearest big city, and we're not on a main transit route, so I have a not-unjustified hope that there is only so much growth that could happen, even if all three dead industries came roaring back at once.