Am I a crazy woman for living here?

Some folks think so. You?

Apr 30, 2024

As baffling as it is to me, some people do not understand why I would want to live 20 miles from a decent town on the edge of the wilderness in the mountains surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest.

I mean, UPS, FedEx and Amazon trucks can all find me. While I’m still on DSL (and I’ve made it work for remote work), I hear rumors we might get high-speed internet eventually. The small, regional broadband provider did get a grant to bring high-speed to addresses in our rural county that didn’t even have dial-up, so I’m told they’ll backtrack and fill in the gaps later.

I’m even more baffled when folks look at my amazing view and tell me, “You’re so lucky!” I give luck about 5% of the credit for finding this bit of heaven. You have to be intentionally looking for a mortgage on a gravel road this far out of town “on the edge of the world,” as a friend says.

Many conveniences are worth losing

Not only did I deliberately forego a lot of other modern life conveniences to move here (the nearest Target is about an hour away), I’ve rearranged my life to forego a lot of daily conveniences to live here. There’s no running to the store on a whim. I grocery shop every week or two and keep in-town errands – 30 minutes one way – to typically once a week.

I work remotely, so thankfully, commuting is not an issue.

I bought this property to be here, not just sleep here. To have enough space and trees to be still with the silence deeply enough that I can find myself again away from the noise of a chaotic world.

So, again, I was baffled when my sister surprised me with an unusual sibling taunt: “But you don’t go anywhere!”

When you don’t need to escape

“I live in a vacation destination!” I responded at the time. It’s true, and I haven’t seen – or done – all that’s here. Our county swells with hiking, mountain-biking, road-cycling and music-loving tourists for most of the year. City folk pay a lot of money to stay in the short-term rentals up and down the road from me.

But now I have a better answer to that taunt, from author, entrepreneur and teacher Seth Godin:

“Set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

The reason you haven’t heard from me for a couple weeks is because I’m working on a series of articles on how I’ve set up a slow life I don’t need to escape from, for folks who are more curious than baffled. Stay tuned.

In the meantime I thought I’d offer you a digest of newsletters I published before moving everything to Substack last November (which is why they all have the same publication date) that many recent subscribers will not have seen.

Love to hear your thoughts. If you like them, please give me a boost by sharing.

And go out and have a wander today!