Quiet In the Country

I'm up in the Hill Country this weekend, and I must say that I'm really enjoying the quiet. Everything here seems more peaceful than at home. Life moves slower. When you shop in small towns, people take time to smile and chat with you even though you're a stranger to them.

When we travel up here, leaving Houston behind, eight lanes of concrete give way to two-lane blacktop roads. Landscaped esplanades carefully planted at precisely spaced intervals with live oaks yield to fields of golden-petaled Black-eyed Susan's and vibrant orange Mexican Sombrero wildflowers.

Country Living's Lack Is Appealing

Don A. Dillman said, "Ironically, rural America has become viewed by a growing number of Americans as having a higher quality of life not because of what it has, but rather because of what it does not have!"

I guess he was right because time spent up here is more relaxed because of the technological aspects of life which are absent -- by our choice -- here.

The air smells differently up here. The sky seems bigger. We look east to the horizon and whirl around to look west and see where the land curves down to the other horizon. Spectacular. At night, there's no light pollution to diminish the light from the heavens. Stars twinkle brightly, and the full moon, at perigee this weekend --the point at which it makes its closest approach to the Earth -- is like a spotlight hanging over the house.

I can feel myself relaxing as if the tension inside were physically manifested as a tightly-wound spring suddenly weakening and uncoiling. As the stress ebbs, I find my imagination stirring. An idea I'd been "playing with" surfaces, just begging to be explored. With no television, video games, or even people except for my husband, I can yield to my creative self and explore all the ideas that pop up.

Albert Einstein said, "I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

Takeaway Truth

I think Einstein was right. Without other interruptions and disruptions, a quiet life nourishes the imagination.