Rural fix: solution #6

Here's to long drives on county roads amid cotton fields and shrimp houses. Here's to stopping in the middle of the street and leaning out the window of a dusty pickup truck to chat with folks in another truck. Here's to greasy breakfast food in a smoke-tinged diner. Here's to LA, as in Lower Alabama, the perfect antidote to my cityfied capitolized careerist subsistence in Washington DC.

It's up for debate whether country living is really for me, but certainly urban life is only possible with regular breaths of rural air. On weekends the farm, the mountains, even the gas stations along the way OUT are all part of my much-needed exurban life. It started with outdoor sports and has grown over the last few years to include a yearning for basic interactions with folks who live in quieter, more isolated places. People who don't care much about your profession, who are rooted in a real place. Most typically I flee to West Virginia, sometimes Maryland or Virginia. On work trips I also seize on any chance to see someplace new, which perhaps explains the underlying cause of 100+ travel days logged last year.