Day 6 - Be Yourself

Evansville is a decent sized "small" city, a "large" town. It's on a river, it has some nice buildings downtown, some nice shopping on both sides, it has housing that covers both ends of the spectrum, it offers a little night life, and it's dropped right in the middle of mid-west cornfield country. When I was a kid, making a trip to Evansville was a real experience. If you went to Evansville from my town, you were doing some big time shopping, or you were going to a special restaurant. This was a real night out!

And then, you grew up, and went somewhere else, because this place was just too small for your big personality and your big goals!! You had to get out of these cornfields! You had big plans, Baby, and this little burg wasn't big enough to hold all your ideas! Besides, you were already a big fish in this pond, so you just KNEW that you would be an amazingly BIG FISH out there in the great places... the NEW YORK, the LOS ANGELES, the CHICAGO, the VEGAS, and everywhere else the people weren't a bunch of hometown hicks that drove tractors on the road, (WTH????) and every family owned a pick-up truck, (why????) and you wore one of two colors... John Deere green or Massey red. You were going somewhere that didn't make owning a hog and showing it at the local 4-H county fair your big project for the year. You were heading out to a place that you could prove your talents and knock people out with your sophistication and intelligence and people skills! You were going to make lots of money and live in a cool apartment with either everything you could want, or nothing at all but an awesomely inspiring view of a busy cafe street, and you would be bohemian and enjoy the latest live music and coffee. And frankly, you could go the rest of your life without the gossip that comes with these hokey little towns.

So you do this. You leave. And then, after a few years, you REALLY grow up. And you realize that you aren't a big fish anymore. You're just like all the other little fishes, just swimming 'round with each other, laughing, enjoying, starving, working, and searching.

And something makes you miss home. So you come back, and you give it a shot. And your priorities change... and you realize that it wasn't about all the hokey home-town stuff that you disliked. You just needed to go out and live a little, learn a little, and it helped you realize that all the towns and all the cities are the same. It just depends on how you see YOURSELF as to how much you enjoy your surroundings.

The great thing about being REALLY grown up, is that if you want to be a kid again, you can. Because you accept yourself. You can make your surroundings anything you want. It doesn't matter WHERE you are, but just that you are YOURSELF.

So go out, explore your own small town. Find the things in it that are special that you never knew existed. Visit that chicken farm and collect your own eggs, then go home and savor them, and see how nature loves us. Do it in your city... find that out-of-the-way restaurant that some guy who wants to be a big fish is playing his guitar, hoping to be discovered. Take a walk and really LOOK around, and you'll see that no matter where you are, you will be yourself.

I'm looking forward to discovering natural food options that I didn't know existed here. I'm falling in love with this midwest cornfield!!! More tomorrow on a local CSA farm after I find out more about it. Blessings!!!!