I would love to live in the country becuase I long for a natural environment. I love dirt roads, woods, bird song, and farm houses. But I want to live in the city more than I want to live in the country because of the culture that exists in urban places. I like living close to other people. I like crossing paths with friends at the post office or the coffee shop. I like to have a friend over for dinner that can afterwards walk home. I long for this city to become more and more intimate, more and more potent with color and diversity. I want our city to be a place were I have several layers of friends in intersecting circles. I want neighbors to come over to borrow spices for a recipe they are in the middle of. When I am paintingsome times I need to take a breakso I get up and go for a walk through the neighborhood-maybe just a few blocks and then make my way back to the studio When I am back I feel refreshed and ready to begin again.
We have chickens in the back yard along with rabbits in hutches. We made a rabbit pot pie last week and a large pot of chicken vegatable soup the week before all from what was raised in our own city lot back yard. The other day we watched a humming bird from our dinning room table through the french door while it made its visits to various flowers in the garden. A couple of the guys next door have parents who run a green house. They brought over four large boxes of peat moss left over from the easter lilly bulbs their father had just ordered. They thought we could use it for our garden. When things like that happen the city begins to feel like an urban village. We want some of what we love about the country to show up more and more here in the city. We want the soft contours of nature to blur the edges of the neighborhood. We want more gardens, more beauty and more mystery and the songs of birds. Tonight this is my prayer.
