Kerri Powers: blog

It's a 'quiet as a mouse' kind of Sunday evening. The trees look like stick figures in the dark, sleeping on their feet, and I haven't seen or heard a car go by for hours. 

Living in the country (or should I say, boonies) has its perks. A lot of my friends, family, and clients have mentioned with concern that I must get lonely living outside the perimeter of familiarity - away from civilization as we know it. ( ; But I have found it to be a positive experience thus far. It is very conducive to a creative lifestyle; remote and quiet - plenty of privacy with the exception of an occasional nosey skunk or pair of thieving chipmunks.

Actually, I have always had an appreciation for the simpler things life has to offer and being out in such a rural setting reinforces this. I don't focus on wanting what I don't have but instead, dwell in a comfortable place of knowing the value and importance of what I already have - my loving family, good friends, beautiful clients and a solid roof over my head as well as a car that gets me from point "A" to point "B." And for the most part, my health. Sure I like to buy clothes and shoes from time to time (boots are my weakness), but I have truly asked myself numerous times over the last few years, "how much do you really and truthfully need?" The answer is always the same, "not much."

So as I type, my pretty tortoise shell cat, T. sits beside me on the bed, washing her face with her left paw. The quiet allows me to hear the faint ting of her collar bell and low hum of the laptop. I have a lavender candle burning bright and it has cast a wide shadow of the lampshade upon my bedroom wall. After a long and rather arduous couple of years, I have come into my own. All these simple things are the things I have earned and love. The quiet of these back roads and this old farmhouse leaves me feeling very much at home and at peace tonight.