Remember the story of the country mouse and the city mouse? I’m definitely the country mouse, but I do enjoy the city.

I love the wide-open spaces, or a tree-lined mountain trail, a wind-swept shoreline with waves crashing-a place where a quiet calm prevails, even in a fierce, blinding blizzard that envelopes the distant homes of neighbors; where stars stretch across the night sky in a sparkling, bedazzled blanket. I love to ride down the dirt roads and through tall pasture grasses while tractors disc or chisel through summer fallow, pick-ups haul fertilizer, and windmills churn water up into stock tanks. I love the smell of rain in the mountain pines and the way pasque flowers bloom in spring. I love the salt-spray in the wind on a beach and the gritty feel of sand sticking to my legs. I love checking and feeding cattle, pulling discs and sweeps through fields, grooming, saddling and riding for hours, harvesting and preparing jelly, zucchini and rhubarb to last all winter, and I love rising before dawn to see the sun slowly rising to wake up the day.

But I know those who love the city can create just such a list too: of meeting friends at the coffee shop, going to the theatre, hearing the newspaper thud on the front steps or the bustle of crowds on the sidewalks, shopping, riding the subway, handing out Halloween candy to hundreds of kids, art museums, concerts, hockey games and going out to eat. I can get lost in a good musical or play and I love going to the movies. Book stores-mmmm, evening performances in grassy green parks, neighborhood churches, city bike paths- a kind of hustle and bustle that maybe soothes or energizes.

I like a taste of the city, dream of someday going to Paris, but there is nothing like the sun setting over the fields or behind the mountains, or sinking under the ocean.