Someone had the essay below from Vogue posted on their Facebook timeline. In addition to the fact that it is a beautifully written piece that literally makes you feel you are with the writer in his journey from city dweller to his now Woodstock, NY home, I get the whole move-to-the-country thing and how it fits me personally. Mind you I am not as deep in the country as the author, but I can’t help but feel a sort of parallel after a fashion. Similarly age, and life changes including where I live now versus where I used to.
Having moved a few short years ago from the Main Line to Chester County,I get it the whole change of venue and lifestyle. When I initially told people I was moving a lot were like “Why? You guys could live on the Main Line.”
They didn’t get that I didn’t want to and much like the feelings of the author watching where he lived in NYC change, I was ready and wanted to live a more country existence . Change is inevitable, but as the area I once called home had changed, truthfully so had I.
What I had grown up in and amongst no longer existed on the Main Line. Everything was going from being a beautiful place to a place that no longer fit me. Glorious gardens and beautiful houses were being replaced one by one with Tvyec monogrammed infill development and the Main Line was evolving from being suburban to becoming what I continue to see happening: a crammed, noisy, traffic filled urban existence with a homogenous feel that is less than special.
And the people were changing in addition to the landscape. A lot of the the people on the Main Line had gone from being the gracious, civilized, and genteel people I grew up with, to being a whole lot of overly ambitious crass and not so pleasant social climbers whose favorite game was constant one upsmanship. And dermatological fillers. I also didn’t care about designer, car, and more general people name dropping. My friends still there are not those people, but if they are honest they are now the exceptions rather than the rule.
Living out here in Chester County completes the adult me. I am happy. And many of my Main Line friends still treat me like I live in Iowa. Some of them have never been out to see where I live although invited. The constant chorus of “It’s so far” …..yet amazingly enough I can always go back there. The funny thing is when I do go back, I now look at where I used to live through the eyes of a stranger…..and can’t wait to get back to my little slice of heaven in Chester County.
I look at where I used to be and where I am now and well, I can just breathe and be myself. There is something very luxurious about that, and living on the Main Line can’t buy that feeling as far as I am concerned. And as I have said before, many of the people I enjoyed in various stages of my younger self now live out here as well.
I am posting the article below. I love, not like living more in the country. Give this essay a read. Thanks for stopping by on a rainy morning!
At the risk of sounding appallingly pretentious, it was Cate Blanchett who made me realize it was time to leave New York City. It was a year ago, last October, and we had just finished a leisurely interview over a late dinner in a London restaurant when we found ourselves standing on a rainy street corner, not quite ready to say good night. She asked what I was doing the next day, and I said I had no plans because I have no friends who live in central London anymore. Like my friends in Manhattan, most of them have moved somewhere less ruinous. Blanchett, who’d left London herself a few years earlier, looked a little wistful and said, “It’s a different place.” Having recently turned 50, I muttered something about being older—maybe that’s what had changed. “No,” she said firmly. “The world’s changed. It’s very difficult to know where to be.”…..That was the moment, right there, the speech delivered toward the end of the story by the passing character in the protagonist’s life that turns on the light and shifts everything. As I said goodbye and walked away, my heart pounding, I was filled with a rush of certainty about something I had been puzzling over for years: Where should I be? I hopped in a cab and called my boyfriend, Andy, back in New York: Quit your job, and let’s move upstate.
Yay for you ! I’ve been on a similar journey from the projects of Brooklyn..to private school on the Main Line to Hollywood CA…I’ve finally settled in a suburb of Los Angeles..BURBANK! I love it here – most would say boring and waaay too “Vanilla” ( no offense) but it ‘s HOME to me – I know my neighbors…have fallen asleep with my front door open and unlocked…and the critter community is awesome. Humming birds come right up to my face! Love & Miss you! 🙂 ~
GMJ LOL you have been on part of my journey with me. Cheers to you!