Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Earlier this week, I was driving down a dusty dirt road on my way home. The mixture of red clay and sand sent my little red car on a slight slip, but I grew up and learned to drive on roads like this and the slip of my tire's wheels was as familiar to me, I knew how to balance out the slipperiness of roads like that.
It was while driving that I started to think, “how lucky am I to have grown up on roads like this?”
Except for a few years when my parents took it into their mind that we were going to be “city folk” and we lived in first a neighborhood townhouse and then in a tight apartment (both of which were short-lived and unpleasant for all of us), I've always lived out in the country.
I am more familiar with waking up to the sound of roosters and chickens (both ours and our neighbor's through the woods) and going to bed with the sound of crickets and cicadas than I am with spending the day with sounds of vehicles or other people.
When I learned how to drive, my dad took me to a nearby, rarely-traveled dirt road and let me get used to being behind the wheel while traveling over that gravel and red-clay road. I can't imagine having to learn how to drive while in a city or neighborhood!
My family has always had animals – be it a cat and dog, or chickens and goats. We've had a little jersey bull calf and more guinea fowl than I can remember.
Living in the country has never been a choice I got to make as a kid – and I can recall some times when I wasn't happy with it. I had family members who lived closer to Tallahassee, and the envy I experienced when I saw that they could order a pizza and have it delivered to their house was nothing to joke about. I lamented about the “nothingness” of living out in the country – I couldn't walk to a friend's house, reaching town was at least a 30-minute drive, the internet connection at our house was weak at best, and our front yard got coated with a layer of limestone dust whenever the weather dried and the limestone road we lived one turned to powder.
Growing up, there were moments when I thought I had gotten the short end of the 'growing up' stick because I had to live way out in “the middle of nowhere.” But I've gotten older since that pre-teen/teenage lament about country living; now, I feel so blessed to have spent my growing up years way out in the boonies of rural counties.
I couldn't just walk over to a friend's house, which meant I spent more time with my siblings, developing a relationship that will remain strong forever. I couldn't spend my time online, so I spent my childhood in a way I know now was best – being outside, in the outdoors, exploring the massive track of timberland that surrounded our house. Instead of watching TV inside (being able to get cable was a joke...we didn't even bother owning a TV for most of my childhood), we were out catching bullfrogs in a nearby pond, creating a treehouse in the boughs of an ancient oak, digging out underground burrows (and covering them with tree boughs and wooden boards so we could hide in them, invisible) in the ground.
My brothers and I ran wild and free, barefoot and likely filthy (you don't notice the dirt nearly as much when you are a kid). We spent nights staying up late, laying out on a blanket in the yard, staring up at the unhindered canvas of starry night sky – no city lights to dim their glow.
When I got older, the lengthy drive to anywhere gave me a good chance to get out those pesky teenaged sentiments. There is a strange cathartic nature of driving at night on a dark dirt road and letting out any pent up emotions. It also meant that I never stayed out late – if it took me an hour to get back home after visiting a friend and my curfew was set in stone, then I had to leave early to get home in time.
The first job I ever had as an older teen was working as a live-in nanny for a friend in Tallahassee, and I worked two days on, one day off. So I would always drive home the night of my last day on, and that hour-long drive back home, late at night with nothing for company but the road and the pines lining it, helped me think and understand more about the person I was growing up to be.
I would not have had that childhood if I grew up somewhere without dusty dirt roads and acres of solemn rows of pine.
Sometimes, I still have that far-off dream of living somewhere in a loft apartment, all the niceties of “city life” only a walk or short bike ride away. I dream about living somewhere where the glow of streetlights bounces off glossy pavement...but, I think if I ever did, I wouldn't want to stay long.
I'd miss the starry night skies, the scent of soil and pine and the dusty country roads that has steeped itself into my rural DNA.
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