Comments on: why I don’t live in paradise, for some definitions of paradise

By: Gaslight Joe

Gaslight Joe — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:20:16 +0000

A couple of years ago I was having a casual conversation with my friend on her condo balcony that looked down on Juno Beach, Florida. She asked me where I most like to live. I told her that the choice was between woods and water.

She and her husband had made comfortable life in Florida, but the pace of the place is too much for me. My sense of place is in the midwest. My wife grew up in the Ozarks and after 30 years living in an evermore commercialized college town, we took the chance and returned to her family’s area. Deer run through the yard. Hawks and turkey vultures soar on the thermals. The land is bountiful in its way, but community is family here. My library work is akin to seat warming, but it’s a job in a depressed job market and I’m happy to have it.

If I had your freedom, I would move to Rhodes in the eastern Mediterranean and live out my days eating octopus salad and drinking Retsina, but I’m not, so I’ll live out my days in the backwoods of Missouri picking blackberries and peaches in the season and catching the odd rainbow trout. Not so bad.

By: scully

scully — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:08:03 +0000

That quote captures why we came to Vermont too. Thanks for sharing!

Please don’t add “favorites” to abada abada! ;)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:40:10 +0000

You mean in a facebook sort of way?

By: laura

laura — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:35:56 +0000

I would just like to like this post.

By: M Wms

M Wms — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:43:05 +0000

Community is paramount for me, too, and I live living in a small town, where I know most people by sight if not name, and I also like living in a place where foxes, deer, porcupine and groundhogs are always around. (Mice, too, I’m sure!)

But if work (spouse’s) didn’t require us to live in northern New England, I would like to find that community much further south … and coastal …

By: Jessica

Jessica — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:21:38 +0000

I find myself thinking about my ideas of “home,” and “paradise” a lot now that I live someplace that I thought I would love, but do not. I wish I could find that magical combination of nature and community – I love the Cape in terms of the fact that I, like you, prefer to live simply and surrounded by natural beauty. But I have no community here, and I doubt I ever will. I miss Bristol, which feels like “home” to me…. I’m still hoping that someday I can go to Hawaii and see if that’s where I belong.