Home on the Range

Posted by Cynical Sarah on February 9, 2006

When people ask me “Where are you from” I never really know how to answer the question. I’m not one of those people who grew up in just one town or even one state.

My Dad’s job moved us around quite a bit while I was growing up. There were some short stints in Montana and Minnesota while I was an infant. Then quite a few years in two different towns in North Dakota, and no, I don’t sound like the people in the movie “Fargo.” My teen years were spent in South Dakota and college in Nebraska.

You’d think I would have escaped after college, but I ended up close to home in Nebraska and South Dakota. If I have to say where I’m from, I guess I’m from the Midwest in general – the good old breadbasket of America.

There are things that I definitely don’t miss from there now that I’ve been living in Vancouver for almost a year. I don’t miss the cold and the snow. This week is one of the few that I’ve had to actually put on a coat instead of just a sweatshirt to go out and do things.

I also love public transportation and not having to worry about a car and insurance payment. It’s a lot less stressful going out when I don’t have to worry about driving and trying to contain my road rage.

I’m not a big partier so the nightlife of a big city doesn’t interest me, but I love that there’s always something to do here if I want to go and do it. I tend to be lazy, so it’s not super often I drag my husband out, but when I want to I can. There’s so many cultural and art and fun festivals of all kinds to choose from. There’s music, and home shows and walks along the beach.

It’s pretty incredible really for someone who spent most of her life in an area where bars were your best social option and the county fair was a huge highlight each year.

As much as I love it here, I’m also finding out there’s strange little things that I miss from back home. I say strange on purpose because it’s not anything that I would have expected.

I miss country music. Sometimes I’ll have CMT on the TV most of the day. I wasn’t even a huge fan of country music when I lived in country music country. I’m a rock and roll kind of girl, but country music reminds me of home.

Along with the music, I’ve suddenly got a weird fascination with bull riding. Anytime I see some bull riding event or that new show about bull riders on TLC, I end up watching it. I’m watching an event even as I type this. Now, by Midwestern standards, I’m a city girl. I’ve been to a few rodeos, because my younger cousin is an avid competitor, but I’m the girl in shorts and a t-shirt sitting in the stands covered in sun block enjoying that I’ll be getting some natural highlights in my hair rather than the chemical ones. So it’s odd that I would bother to watch something like bull riding when I don’t know anyone that’s competing.

I don’t think it’s the actual even that I’m fascinated with though. And get your mind out of the gutter if you were thinking it must be the cute cowboys in boots and spurs. I think it’s just that it’s another thing that reminds me of home. The people are so down-to-earth and real. While the people back home aren’t all cowboys, they have those similar qualities.

Canadians are supposed to be pretty well-known for their friendliness, but even in Canada, big cities like Vancouver end up pretty cold. People aren’t as friendly or polite. There aren’t the niceties and politeness that you found bred into people in the Midwest where it’s just common practice for a guy to tip his hat in greeting or for strangers to be friendly to each other while out shopping.

I suppose that sort of makes me a “country” girl now that I live in the big city, which is an odd shift when you’ve always been a city girl. But I’d rather be labelled “country” and keep my small-town, down-to-earth ways. They are certainly already enough cold and self-absorbed people out there.

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