Between Two Places

I moved to the countryside in search of peace and quiet.

After almost a year of being the last person to get off the bus every evening, and with a rooster that stubbornly insists the day begins at five o'clock every morning, I have to admit I'm almost ready to move back to something that resembles civilisation.

Almost might be overstating it.

I still don't have anywhere to move to.

My living room is filled with things that have either been packed away or are waiting for a trip to the recycling centre. Everything I own exists in one stage or another of being dismantled. I'm eating from paper plates with wooden cutlery as though I'm running a failed takeaway from my own living room. On the kitchen counter sits a small, battered hotplate and a lonely saucepan that's been given the honourable task of boiling water for coffee.

The rest of my life is packed into boxes.

It's been quiet out here.

Very quiet.

The sort of silence people in the city dream about while sitting in traffic, promising themselves that one day they'll move to the countryside. They imagine birdsong, fresh air, and plenty of time to think.

What they probably don't imagine is just how much thinking you can get through when very little else is happening.

Because even in the countryside, you still have to deal with people.

There are just fewer of them.

And they seem perfectly happy with that arrangement.

My neighbours are friendly enough, but they're also impressively private. I think I've seen one of them twice in an entire year. As for the other, I'm still not entirely convinced they exist at all, or whether they're simply a rumour kept alive by the postman.

At this point, I'm really just looking forward to being finished.

Not necessarily to moving somewhere in particular.

Just to being finished with the move itself.

Finished with the uncertainty.

Finished with the boxes.

Finished with the feeling that life has been put on hold while I wait for the next chapter to decide it's finally ready to begin.

It'll be nice not to spend an hour and a half on a bus every time I come home from town. It'll be nice to live somewhere where public transport doesn't feel like an experiment conducted by someone with a personal grudge against spontaneous plans.

When there are only a couple of buses a day, your entire life ends up organised around the timetable. You stop travelling when the bus allows it, not when you want to.

Even so, I'm glad I did this.

My year in the countryside gave me something I needed.

Time.

Time to work on projects I'd become stuck on. Time to think. Time to write. Time to let things mature without the world constantly knocking at the door asking whether I had two minutes to spare.

And it was good to get away from people for a while.

But I've missed them too.

Not any particular people, necessarily.

Just people.

The man standing in front of you in the queue commenting on the weather. The woman asking whether the bus is running late. The cashier who recognises you after your third visit.

Those small, random encounters that don't really matter, yet somehow remind you that you're part of the world.

There's only so long you can have meaningful conversations with chickens.

And now they're gone as well.

I started with eleven.

Last week I gave away the final four.

The rest disappeared gradually over the course of the year thanks to hawks, foxes, what appeared to be suicide, and several incidents that still haven't received a satisfactory explanation.

Now the henhouse stands empty.

For the first time in a long while, I'm not responsible for any living creature other than myself.

It's actually rather pleasant.

At the same time, it turns out I'm more than enough responsibility on my own.

So here I am.

Between two places.

Between two chapters.

Between the life I've finished with and the life that hasn't quite begun yet.

It feels like living in a vacuum.

And it's surprisingly exhausting.

I just hope I find somewhere to live soon.

Not necessarily my dream home.

Just somewhere I can unpack my coffee mug, put the plates back in the cupboard, and stop feeling as though my entire life is stacked in cardboard boxes against the wall while I wait for the next bus.