Warm Fuzzies

Going home to Wisconsin is so sweet. I appreciate it more and more as time goes on. Isn't that funny? Seven years ago, all I wanted was to get out of dodge and live within 30 minutes of a quality mall. Now I miss the stars and gravel driveway and fresh air and would happily chat around a fire every night of my life.

Why does it end up that way? That such an adventurous mind always wanders back to a town of just around 2,000 inhabitants, most of whom are from the same few Dutch families who also happen to know mine and everything about it. That used to be suffocating to me (I imagine in some ways it still would be), yet now I also see the good side of it: people care. In the Western Suburbs of Chicago, there are surely caring people, but you sort of need to make a concerted effort to build those communities where everyone is in everyone else's business. In some ways I think we were meant to live in that way, up in one another's business, whether we be a city mouse or a country mouse (sorry for that metaphor, I tend to think in Children's Literature most of my day). I was talking to a friend yesterday who said that it's important to build those communities around you even as adults, even if it's a little clumsy and fumbling, a little artificial feeling when trying to figure out how to live in and through this life with others. Sure, I have Brian and he has me, but we are more than just there for the other. We all need one another. And I suppose that's the thing that I love about my small town community. Everyone needs each other there: the construction guy buys his groceries from the grocery guy, and the grocery guy hires the construction guy to add an addition on his house. It's a cool thing.

One of these small town sort of connections allowed my dad to find a great deal on a used International Harvester Tractor, his current Pride and Joy. He loves that thing. It's got a great retro look, and I think it will be credited with some cool changes to the property around my house. Brian and I went to The Grove for the weekend a few weeks ago to check it out for ourselves. That, grouped with a bonfire Saturday night and a walk around our land with my mom on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, called for some serious warm fuzzes.