Quiet

Its been a busy little weekend. Yesterday I drove up north, to the Upper Valley area to attend a birthday party for my God son. It was interesting as Rowan was the only girl and everyone else was 5 and she is only 3.

It was a long drive up highway 89. which is boring and sparse... with nothing but trees and mountains to break up the monotony. 70 miles of them.

The Upper Valley is the place we are moving to in June. I grew up there. But I've now lived in the seacoast area for 12 years, longer than I lived there which seems so strange to me now. But the seacoast has become my home.

The Upper Valley feels familiar to me, but not the same. Like a familiar taste in my mouth that I can not place. I struggled with those feelings during the long drive, because I know soon, it will be my home again.

The two places (seacoast and upper valley) are night and day. The seacoast area is obviously wealthy, and well kept with expensive boutiques and clean well maintained shopping centers.

The upper valley is not. It's a poorer area I guess you could say. But not dreadfully poor. There's just a different mentality up there. Life isn't about having Pier One bookshelves or matching dinner ware. Its about country life. Gardens. Mountains. Fishing in streams freezing cold from the mountain snow run off. Hunting. Moose crossing signs. Hiking. Dirt track race cars show.

Its slow. Quiet. Relaxing yet frightening in its solitude.

Here where I live, in the town of Rochester, there are 30,000 people. A modest population for a city, but large no less when you consider the town I'm moving too has just over 1000 people.

Driving down 89 I felt the solitude pressing in upon me. Almost suffocating. You could drive miles before you saw a house.... it was nothing but trees in the muted tans brown and ever green colors of a cold winter. The awesome power of the emptiness truly makes you feel very very small.

Yet it if you allow it to seep into your bones, you eventually start to feel the peace that this type of emptiness brings. No cars honking, no traffic, no police sirens whaling by, no noise.

Just silence, nature.... quiet....