It’s a typical August Friday in Northern California. Commuters are eager for the weekend. One can tell it’s late afternoon when driving over Mount St. Helena, or as my family prefers, the St. Helena Raceway. But I am driving against traffic, experiencing the normal emotions every mother has when moving their kid out of the house for another year of college. It’s not like I haven’t done this before. My oldest graduated from college several years ago, and this is my son’s senior year. I am becoming a pro, if you will.
The winding road, sun, and long shadows play peek-a-boo with each other, and are also playing tricks with my eyes, requiring more focus. But I know this road well and flow with the winding rhythm, grateful for the scenery of tall trees that cast the long shadows, and eventually, the expansive vineyards that make up Napa Valley.
Eventually, after arriving at our destination, a strange feeling of I don’t belong here creeps in when I step out of my parked car. It’s not me, not exactly me, that doesn’t fit in. At least I don’t think so. My car is newer, recently washed, and I’m dressed casually for the occasion, but not tacky or dirty. But something feels off until I realize in front of my son’s new home, there isn’t a speck of dirt, grass–fake or real–or anything living other than a couple of ornamental shrubs and a newly planted tree. Not one weed to be found anywhere. Everything is concrete and bark with the exception of the few trees and shrubs I mentioned. Not one chirp of a bird, no menacing spider webs to collect dust, not even a fly buzzing–nothing.
I dismiss this alien feeling and get to work unloading and unpacking my son’s room, and it hits me again that I don’t belong when I carefully place my son’s food in the refrigerator and freezer. Next to his produce, raw meat, and eggs are his roommate’s foods: Instant everything you can imagine, with every condiment and sauce for the occasion—the same goes for the freezer.
I mention my findings and observations to my son and Jonah (Rees’s father), and Jonah’s eyes widen, “Me too! I thought I was the only one who felt out of place when I killed a black widow we found in the dresser drawer.” Something that happens when college furniture is stored in a somewhat empty woodshed for the summer. No big deal, right?
I smile, knowing that he is observing everything I am.
I put on a brave face before I hug my son goodbye, once again leaving him in his own capable hands of young adulting and going to school. Then my son hands me a lidless metal water bottle topped with a plastic bag and a rubber band holding it in place.
“Here, take this home, but be careful, we found a frog while unpacking and put it in here with some water while you were gone buying me a floor lamp. It’s ok, we put holes in the bag,” he says so matter-of-factly because these things happen sometimes. I laugh because I can’t help myself.
“Yes, I’ll return nature back to nature,” I smile when I realize that there isn’t even a backyard to his house. Merely a small concrete patio with a table, some chairs, and a BBQ. 100% concrete against a wooden fence. Wow, No Dirt Allowed Here seems to be the unspoken rule. But I keep that thought to myself before taking my new precious cargo with me to my car.
Well, no dirt means no bugs either. That’s one good thing about this kind of living, I muse to myself before my final wave goodbye.
Fast forward five or so days to today, while eating my breakfast and thinking of my son and his first week of school, I wonder what he is eating. Is he having one of his homemade breakfast burritos for breakfast, which we made and froze for him before leaving? And then I notice what I am eating for breakfast. It’s a breakfast sandwich made with homemade bread that came from my oven, an egg my chickens laid, a tomato, and basil from my aquaponics garden. Everything I’m eating came from my home and my own hands. Now, I can’t say that about every meal I eat. But I know, more than likely, no one can say that where my son now lives.
Sure, there are advantages to living in the city, and I don’t doubt that someone reading this might have freaked out about the black widow and frog that hitched a ride to the city with us, and prefer a rather less messy concrete life where nothing changes other than the weather. But not me.
I’m proud of the dirt under my fingernails and calluses on my hands. I’m already getting excited for fall’s first fire in my fireplace, burning firewood that I carried up thirty-seven steps to store in my woodshed. Sure, I could do without creepy crawly bugs and the raccoons that want to eat my chickens, or the deer eating my roses, and having the annual stress of what to do with all of this year’s zucchini and tomatoes.
But for me, this is becoming more real than the concrete life most of us are living right now. And then to add Blue Zones to my life, I’m finding that the quality of life I am enjoying is far greater than anything the city has to offer. Plus, San Francisco and Sacramento are only a two-hour drive. I can visit anytime I choose! But unlike my son, tonight I will fall asleep to the sound of crickets serenading me all night long before my rooster tells me dawn is near. Ok, I could do without the rooster on the weekends, but damn, those eggs taste good.
So here’s to country living and why I am proud to call Lake County my home.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Blue Zone’s way of living to enhance your life, join me on this adventure! But be forewarned, you might plant a garden even if only in pots and get dirt under your nails. And you might eat differently when you eat out, as has happened to me. Just last week, while looking at a menu, the thought of eating a hamburger or a club sandwich sounded awful, and I opted for the vegetarian grain bowl instead. And it was delicious! And you might opt for more walks, sunset evenings, and less TV. You see, it’s the little changes over time that add up to lifestyle changes. And instead of looking back and missing a McDonald’s Big Mac, you might only wish you’d made the changes sooner. But then again, that’s speaking just for me.
