homesick

I was listening to some bad country music today. Scary vigilantism and hanging in the streets aside, wouldn't it be nice to see the world as good and bad, pure and evil, saints and sinners?

There are places, outside of country music, where that "simplicity" rests...and I grew up in one of them. Shades of gray and blurriness DO exist in these rural "utopias" but you have to be very perceptive to pick them out. If you pay attention, you'll find the grandparents raising their granddaughter as their own child, the illicit affairs between neighbours, the 19 year old teenager from a strictly religious family seeking sexual gratification from an 11 year old churchmate. Because no matter how strenuously they try to keep their little worlds manageable, life can never be controlled. Baser human urges get in the way.

Sometimes when I've got too many thoughts clattering inside my head, or too much anxiety over the ills of the world, I wish I could seek comfort in the predictability and simplicity that is found in the small Alberta town where I grew up. I could see the same people day after day, know that they are good, and if we need to, we will band together to keep all the "bad" out. Most importantly, the fact that we are erring humans entangled in shades of gray is the secret we will always keep for each other.