Where I live

There are times where I hate where I live. When the fog is bad-not "quarter mike visibility" bad but "the dashed line is only one dash long and I can't see the guardrail" bad. When the road is covered in rock slides. When we get a gust of wind measuring 115 mpg and your roof wants to lift off. When there are flatlanders (tourists) triple-parked along the highway, sledding into traffic, driving 2moh, and getting away with breaking traffic laws because their visit means money for the struggling mountain community.

I hate that if I want organic chicken or chips without MSG or if I need a sweater or baby supplies or ethnic foods, I have to drive 45 minutes to an hour down a deadly road, through a ghetto, just to get something it seems every other town has. I have to also drive this far for work, the doctor's, dental and eye care, and really anything else because all my town has is an overpriced crappy grocery store, a yuck-Donald's, a small hardware, an a zillion second-hand stores.

But then, I also love it here. If I can get away to the city and eat some Indian food and buy some kale and shop for a pair of pants, if I can do this at least once a week to get away, I feel...normal. After too many hours in crowds and smog, when the novelty f civilization and consumerism runs off and starts to fill me with rage, I can escape home under the whoosh of the pine trees in the wind.

I love where I live because I can see the stars, the meteor showers, he Milky Way peek through the towering trees, over five stories tall. I can see the local bald eagle soar over our little pond-sized local lake, and can hear coyotes yap at the bear wandering the neighborhood. I can feel the crunch of oak an maple leaves under my feet in fall, smell the crisp winter scent as the snow piles higher and higher, a foot, two, three, muffling all sounds. I can see the grass sprout and watch the Stellar's Jays build their best under my eaves. I can enjoy a cool 80 degree summer day, walking past lupine flowers and penstemon growing by and underground spring.

I can look at a tree I once climbed and hike to the creek I used to splash in. I can climb some boulders at nearly tree line and recall camping memories.

I can look over my deck, our "private bistro" an enjoy the view. I can nibble on some grilled vegetable pizza my hubby made, and look one way over the tree tops to the next mountain range, or look the other way to the neighbor's and watch the sun filter trough the giant cedars and yellow pines, making sunny sparkles and shadows below.

Here are two photos from my deck. My neck of the woods has much prettier places even, but this is my view. mY view that I enjoy every day, which shows the stars and sunsets and snowy trees and wispy fog. A view that can get covered in birds or falling leaves.