Role Models

Why did I really really want to move to the country?  It was time for a change.

The idea to choose the kind of life that would allow me to avoid the pretentious rat race that exists in most cities is not a new one.  Everyone who has ever packed their bags and headed for parts less populated has more or less had the same idea.  I first started thinking about this type of life choice for myself when I picked up a copy of Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. [Links at the bottom of the page]  She wrote about her decision to buy, sight unseen, an orange grove in central Florida during the late 1920s.  The book is a long description of the changes that occur in her philosophy of life as a result of her decision to trade her upper-class New York lifestyle for the rigors of tending an orange grove scraping out a living in the wilds of Florida to give herself a chance to become the writer she has always wanted to be.  It is clear throughout the book that her new life is very difficult and that her troubles didn't magically go away just because she moved to the country.  However, it is also clear throughout the book that the experience allowed her to identify and develop untapped abilities and grow in unexpected ways, mostly as a result of having to depend on herself and her own judgment to survive.  I admired that.

I love books about the rural south and find myself rereading them often.  I have worn out a couple of copies of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which is also about people who, due in part to the Great Depression and in part to personal philosophy and a regard for the hardships of others, have chosen a less pretentious, simpler way of life.  A Place Called Sweet Apple was written by a woman (Celestine Sibley) who also chose to escape the rat race and find a few quiet acres on which to plant a garden and listen to and nurture her inner self.