One Thing or Another Column: Country Mice

Narration provided by Wondervox

One Thing or Another is a lighthearted look at life, aging, and the absurdities of it all.

By Mark McNease

Having passed the eight-year anniversary of leaving New York City for our little house in the New Jersey countryside, this reflection on life in a rural setting seemed timely again. We occasionally take a bus to Manhattan, or a train to Philadelphia, and we’re not far from some thriving towns along the Delaware River. But daily life is spent on a large tract of land filled with trees, deer, and exuberant animal life that includes a few neighbors along the road. Eight years later there’s not a single regret.

IT’S THE MORNING OF THE time change, that twice-yearly, incomprehensible turning of the clocks by an hour. We’re told, as if it’s an extra treat for puppies, that we’ll have “another hour to sleep.” This is untrue, since most of us inhabit bodies, not clocks, and rather than sleep another hour we just wake up sooner. So here I am an hour earlier than I would have been yesterday, sitting at my living room desk in the true darkness of the countryside, listening to the few sounds a small, old house in the woods has to offer just before sunrise.

For those who’ve spent most of their adult lives in big cities—in my case Los Angeles for twelve years and New York City for twenty-three—the country life usually means the suburbs. People from Manhattan have a habit of thinking any place with fewer than a million residents is Petticoat Junction. They view the outer boroughs and beyond as hopelessly provincial, and deprived of the sort of high culture that makes life worth living. To them, the country includes malls with skylights, elite childcare facilities for gifted children, and at least three Starbucks.

So, to be clear, I have moved to the country, not to Queens. Just beyond our yard is a forest, the kind you only venture into with a growth-clearing machete and a hunting rifle.

There are more deer on Lockatong Road than houses, and seldom any pedestrians except those who live in the immediate area. Some bicyclists pedal by, given the location’s popularity with terribly serious bikers. There’s something about Highway 29 and the hills interweaving between New Jersey and Pennsylvania that attracts them by the hundreds. They travel in packs, appearing to swarm rather than ride, and each of them wears those Lycra outfits with numbers on their chests as if they’re preparing for the Tour de France in rural New Jersey.

There are two gas stations, a liquor store and an upscale market in Stockton, the closest thing to a town we have here. Unfortunately, I’m not able to walk there for breakfast and an hour of obsessive phone time. The town is six miles away. I’ve walked there exactly once. It felt great, if you’re a step counting enthusiast, but very much a one-time effort. While I would prefer being within easy walking distance of these things, I’m willing to trade convenience for the peace, quiet and simple calm of living in the woods.

My stress melts when we turn off the highway onto the back roads leading to our house. The trees comfort me. The sounds of nature, rather than of construction, heal my nerves and call to me. I liked being a big city boy for a long time, and I’ll always enjoy what cities have to offer, but as my golden years beckon like chunks of sunshine on the horizon, I’m ready for a change. I like change. It’s why I’ve lived in all the different places I have, and why my curiosity is still vital to my sense of well-being. I wanted to know what it’s like to live where the only crowd is in my mind, and now I do.

Maybe I’ve always been a country mouse just waiting to get enough of the cities and their excitements to say it’s time to settle down now. I’m definitely an older country mouse, which for many people has nothing to do with it but for me is key: I wanted to slow down. I wanted to walk along our road and wonder what kind of animal we’d just heard scurrying through the underbrush. I wanted our cats to experience sunshine through a window, something they’d never seen in the city, since our apartment faced the metal backend of a college and gave no hint of the weather—it was always just gray. And when we get new cats, I want them to know the expanse of a house, the joy of stairs and rooms and so many places to lounge on. Welcome, country mice. I’m all yours.