Moving to the Country, Gonna Eat A Lot of Peaches

I have a rather large backyard. There is a small pond that we dug while we were building this house. There are trails that wind around it, a fire pit in a small valley next to it, a garden with a wide variety of vegetables, and most importantly, there are peach trees. They were my dad's idea, and he wasn't sure if they would grow well there. It took a couple of years, but they didn't let us down. Every year we get a healthy bunch of peaches that are only good for picking for about a week or so.

Yesterday I stood back by the trees, eating these ridiculously juicy peaches. They are so soft, they practically fall apart as soon as you bite into them. If you dare to eat them around others, you will probably get mildy embarrassed, because you are bound to get juice all over yourself. Nothing you can buy at the store is this good. As I walked around my pond, I also realized, no place in town is this beautiful. Why don't I go back there more often? Why would I want to be anywhere else? There aren't any stupid people back there to bother you, there's not any responsibilities to tug at the back of your mind. That is the place to be. Even the weeds look unreal.

So there I stand in awe, taking it all in, wondering if it would be possible to live out here, behind my pond. Who hasn't considered living in the woods? Well, maybe you haven't. But how much simpler would life be, away from civilization, from all the distractions society has created. Wouldn't you love to leave your facebook behind, stop worrying about everyone else's lives, and think about your own? Wouldn't it be nice to stop watching other people's adventures on TV, and get into the world yourself? We fill our day with so much useless crap. Out in the woods, we could simplify it, eliminate the crap, and everything else would mean so much more. You would have so much less to worry about. Just live off the land, be part of the earth. You could just live, like we were ment to.

On the other hand, would that be the true "human experience"? Sometimes it seems like it, like living off the land, with none of the horrible distractions of today's world, would be the ideal way of life. But you would miss out on what the world is now. Our kind has developed so much, we have learned and created and explored the earth. Wouldn't it be wrong it not take everything the modern world has to offer? This is the new human experience. Being among everyone, doing as much as you can, packing your days full until they run out. Live in a city, meet everyone you can, get out there and see the good, the bad, and the ugly for what it's worth.

I know I'm young, and I know I probably don't have a clue. But it seems to me, that you have to do both. You have to experience it all. So go see what people are doing today, what they have invented and what everyone's talking about. Personally, I think that after I've had my fill of city living, once I have experienced what I can, I will probably go the other direction. I most likely will not live in the woods, but I wouldn't mind a nice house in the countryside, with a bunch of kids, maybe a pond, and definately a couple of peach trees.


*note: I realize that this Presidents of the United States song is a completely inappropriate title for a rather deep blog. But it all started with peaches, and I love this song. It's great fun to dance to.