We drove out to Galena and back, yesterday and today. It’s a charming tourist town on the other side of the state.
We belong to a meat CSA – we pay a subscription to a farm family and in return, every month we get a “share” of meats and eggs. We missed our delivery last night, since we were out of town, so we stopped by the farm on our way home to pick it up.
Our GPS guided us down this road, then that one, deeper and deeper into the “land beyond the interstate.” Finally: a dirt road ended at their farmhouse. A pale lemon yellow, with black and white trim, and quite small, but neat-looking. In contrast, their yard was dirt and full of chickens and farm junk. They had two sweet golden retrievers, with fur full of burrs. Their youngest son was learning to ride a two-wheeled bike on the dirt road.
We got out of the car, and the late afternoon light made even the dirty brown spring colors glow a little. There was so much sky. And it was. So. Quiet.
We got our two dozen eggs and our bag of frozen meat (pork chops, rib eye steak, ground beef, two whole chickens, chorizo, sausage patties). We pet a dog. We chatted briefly. And we got back in our car. The chickens moved out of our way. We started back home, threading our way back down the farm roads, to suburbia.
We saw our first subdivision. Traffic increased. And gradually, there were more and more stores. (Do you realize how many opportunities we’re offered to buy things? Everywhere you turn, you’re assaulted with commerce.) At home, I fired up my laptop and gosh, there was so much information, all of a sudden. That drive, down northern Illinois backroads, felt so finite, so bounded. The views were pretty basic. It was a journey with a lot of room to be in your own head. To have conversation. To notice things in slow motion.
I like our house and our block. I like Bolingbrook. I like living near a grocery store where I can buy pomegranates and goat cheese. But the silence out there got inside my head. I’m sure life for our farm family isn’t perfect, out there in the land beyond the interstate. But I envy them their silence.
