A Little More Sky…

I was born a city slicker.

Not a country girl who wandered back to her roots. Not someone who grew up on an acreage with chickens, muddy boots and an instinctive understanding of which way was north.

City. My whole life.

I grew up surrounded by pavement, traffic, neighbours, streetlights, stores and the general convenience of civilization. When I eventually moved to rural Alberta, I still lived in town for most of my time here.

And then, three years ago, I moved into the country.

I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently that was the end of me.

Because now I have tasted silence.

And there is no going back.

For about six months, I had been looking for another place to live. I searched listings, considered different options and tried to figure out where I could reasonably afford to land.

Then in August, I found an apartment in town.

It made sense.

It was close to everything. Shopping was nearby. Work was nearby. If I forgot milk, I wouldn’t have to decide whether I wanted milk badly enough to justify the drive.

There were definite advantages.

So I went to look at it.

And something strange happened.

Instead of seeing everything I would gain by moving into town, I suddenly became painfully aware of everything I would lose.

The quiet.

The space.

The privacy.

The fresh air.

The darkness at night.

The stars.

I hadn’t realized how much country living had changed me because it happened gradually. There was no dramatic moment where I stood barefoot in a field, raised my arms toward the heavens and announced that I had become one with the land.

I just lived here.

Day after day.

Season after season.

And somewhere along the way, this former city slicker became completely spoiled by peace.

Out here, quiet is actually quiet.

There isn’t a constant soundtrack of traffic, doors, voices, sirens, engines and people coming and going.

Sometimes I walk outside and hear absolutely nothing.

Do you know how loud nothing is once you’ve learned to appreciate it?

It is glorious.

And apparently, there may be more to that feeling than preference.

The World Health Organization recognizes environmental noise as a public-health concern. Research has linked excessive environmental noise with sleep disturbance, stress-related responses, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Our brains can become familiar with background noise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our bodies have stopped responding to it. (World Health Organization)

That made me think differently about what I call peace.

Maybe part of what I feel when I step outside isn’t simply, Oh, this is nice.

Maybe it is the absence of hundreds of tiny demands on my attention.

There is also a kind of privacy out here that I never knew I needed. I can wander around the yard in rubber boots, pajama pants and hair that suggests I have recently survived a small electrical fire, and nobody cares.

Nobody may even know.

That is a level of personal freedom I am no longer willing to underestimate.

Then there is the sky.

I had seen stars before, obviously.

I just didn’t know there were that many.

Away from the light pollution of town and city streets, the night sky seems enormous. On a clear night, the stars are so bright and plentiful that you can’t help but stop and look up.

There is science behind darkness, too.

Light is one of the major environmental signals involved in regulating our circadian rhythms. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis involving more than 765,000 people found that greater exposure to artificial light at night was associated with more sleep disturbance, although—as with most environmental research—there are limitations in determining exactly how much any one person’s exposure affects them. (PubMed)

So my love affair with a dark country sky may not be entirely about the stars.

Although the stars certainly aren’t hurting the situation.

Then there is nature itself.

Research into green-space exposure suggests that being around natural environments may support mental well-being through several pathways, including psychological restoration, reduced perceived stress and increased physical activity. The research isn’t perfect, and it certainly doesn’t prove that everyone should abandon the city and purchase an acreage immediately. But systematic reviews have found meaningful associations between nature exposure and both perceived and physiological measures of stress. (PubMed)

Which makes sense to me now.

Because country life has given me something I hadn’t known I was missing.

Stillness.

Not boredom.

Stillness.

There is a difference.

Boredom says, There is nothing to do.

Stillness says, Nothing needs to be done right now.

That has taken me nearly half a lifetime to understand.

Country living isn’t easier, of course.

Let’s not get carried away.

Things break. Things freeze. Things leak. Things need mowing, shovelling, hauling, fixing, trimming, feeding, draining, covering or somehow rescuing from weather.

A quick trip to the store isn’t always quick.

Sometimes you discover you’re missing one ingredient halfway through making supper and simply stare at the recipe for a moment before deciding that ingredient was probably more of a suggestion anyway.

Living simply requires work.

And rural living comes with legitimate disadvantages. Distance from healthcare, services, shopping and social supports matters. Transportation matters. Isolation can matter. Convenience isn’t frivolous when you genuinely need something.

I don’t think country living is objectively better.

I think I’ve discovered that it is better for me.

Because simple and easy are not the same thing.

Easy removes effort.

Simple removes noise.

And apparently noise was exhausting me more than I knew.

Out here, I notice things.

I notice when the air changes before rain.

I notice what is blooming and what is finished for the season.

I notice how everything smells different in the morning.

I notice the moon.

I notice the stars.

I notice the ridiculous satisfaction that comes from growing something, fixing something or building something with my own hands.

Life somehow feels bigger because there is less competing for my attention.

That’s the irony.

For most of my life, I associated having access to more with having a better life.

More stores.

More restaurants.

More entertainment.

More people.

More convenience.

More choices.

Now I wonder whether sometimes more is simply…more.

More traffic.

More noise.

More rushing.

More stimulation.

More things asking for our attention.

Country life has quietly taught me the value of enough.

And I don’t think I fully understood any of this until I started trying to leave it.

For six months, I thought I was looking for somewhere else to live. That apartment in August simply forced me to see the question differently. I walked into a perfectly reasonable place and realized I wasn’t comparing one home with another. I was comparing two ways of living. One offered convenience. The other offered something I had accidentally fallen deeply in love with.

Peace.

Three years ago, moving into the country felt like another chapter of my life. I didn’t realize it was the beginning of a different way of seeing.

I wasn’t raised for country life. I arrived here almost by accident, then slowly learned that quiet, space, useful work and open sky were not things I had to endure. They were things I had been missing. Funny how that happens.

Sometimes we spend so much time imagining what we still need that we don’t notice when we’re already standing inside something we once would have considered extraordinary.

Maybe home isn’t always the place that feels familiar when you first arrive.

Maybe sometimes home is the place that changes what familiar means. I thought those six months of searching were about finding somewhere new to live.

Instead, they showed me that I had already found home—not because it was convenient, but because it made room for me to feel present.

I was born a city slicker.

Somewhere along the way, I became someone who would drive farther, work harder and give up almost anything for a little more sky.

Turns out, I didn’t need more life.

I needed less noise to hear the one I already had.

References

World Health Organization. Guidance on environmental noise. WHO Compendium of Guidance on Health and Environment.

World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. Biological mechanisms related to cardiovascular and metabolic effects by environmental noise. 2018.

Zhang R, Zhang C-Q, Rhodes RE. The pathways linking objectively-measured greenspace exposure and mental health: A systematic review of observational studies. Environmental Research. 2021;198:111233.

Yao W, Zhang X, Gong Q. The effect of exposure to artificial light at night (ALAN) on sleep disturbance: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Mygind L, et al. Research examining nature exposure and perceived and physiological stress.