IMHO

I don’t live in the “boondocks”. Nor do I live in the “city”. I live in a sort of in-between unincorporated village, a half-hour drive from a vivacious community that adopts the term City to its name, although falls in the “town” definition through population alone. The City of Nelson is vibrant; chock-full of hippies and artists, rednecks and loggers, off-the-grid militaristic pre-cyclers and die-hard fashionistas.

I freakin’ love it.

I actually live in a village some 35 kilometres north of Nelson. We hug the arm and mouth of Kootenay Lake. We are sleepy and quaint and quiet. Not much goes on, and when something happens, like the fence that borders the local catch-all corner store gets smashed in by a drunk driver, well…. it’s big news. Big time news.

Oh, how I love where I live. I get to run along the shores of the most stunning lake in the world. I see ospreys circling and diving for kokanee and rainbow. I watch Golden eagles soar. I see the stinky left-behind remnants of bears on my road, after a night of feasting on berries and apples. I hear coyotes partying at 2 am. I watch deer, see the patches of elk that rest in the snow, marvel at a Great-Horned owl flying over head. Hearing that Swoosh-Swoosh of its wings beating was one of those indefinable defining moments. I met a moose once, while running along the highway one hot July morning. She was just as surprised as me as she came out from the lake from her morning swim…. both of us stopping in our tracks and staring at each other, as if to say W. T. F.???

Today, as I walked along the shores of Kootenay Lake with my daughter, we watched an osprey and a Golden Eagle fight in mid-air. They tousled with one another, falling and flaying, talons raised, screeches echoing against the far shore. We watched, my daughter and I, simply stunned with this unexpected beauty and wildness. And then.. and then… we were blessed with seeing a Blue Heron. Magnificent and long-legged, stork-like and king-like; this bird stood, so still one might think he was a statue. I tried to snap “that picture”, but honestly, my eyes were so hungry to just watch him, I could barely raise my camera to my eyes.

It made me realize that no matter what I hear from my glamourous, world-travelling facebook friends, or my city-dwelling, money-making pals, I am so thankful that I get to live in a place that contains the best of both worlds. I can watch wild life from my home, and then drive to town to shop for some fabulous clothes, art and eat a fantastic dinner and dance all night long to world-class tunes.

By no means would I ever “knock” where anyone lives. That is never my intention. This is only me, in my humble opion, gladly accepting my own blessings in where and how I get to live. I would never ever change it for the world.