i can't decide.

i was sitting in the car tonight waiting for my daughter to come out of choir practice. it's at a 200 year old cathedral downtown (i didn't know we had buildings that old - only parts of it are that old actually). i am so intrigued with the idea of living downtown now. no grass, very few carefully placed trees, noise, noise, noise!!! i've always yearned for green space and quiet, so i don't know why i'm having the desire to be downtown in the smack of everything that i've never wanted.

ok, well maybe i know part of the reason.

activity. there's always something going on downtown, at all hours. the idea of being able to throw on a jacket and walk outside and around the corner and find something new to get into sounds so refreshing. yeah, that's it - refreshing.

i live in a condo in the burbs about 4 miles out of downtown. blah. so blah. there aren't any houses around us - more condos and some apartments across the way. it seems that everyone around us is going somewhere, but always somewhere away from here. there's a park a couple blocks away. it's nice. ball fields, walking trail, training equipment, basketball and tennis courts, a playground. it's lovely really. there are always people out walking their dogs and pushing strollers and jogging.

there's a little shopping center down the road and a few restaurants, banks, public library, drug store, convenience store. and it's a nice area, don't get me wrong. it's just so bland. so suburban.

i lived in the country for a while and i loved it. the quiet, the gentle rolling hills, the cows, the trees, the snakes (yikes!!), the horses. oh the sunrises and sunsets - they were unbelievable. we'd drive in in the mornings with the sun coming up - i can still remember some of those sunrises. the purple and pink and red skies. they were so beautiful some days they were eerie - ethereal. one january it snowed about 7 inches and it was like a dream!!! but i've been there, done that so to speak.

i guess i'm just ready for something new. our downtown has gone thru a revitalization over the last 20 or so years, and it really is beautiful. my hubby would never dream of it, and we can't afford it anyway. but it seems that everything we do is downtown anyway. my daughter's school is close to it, the church, his job, and many days i find myself downtown working, visiting offices. it's just so much more interesting than this pasty white neighborhood i live in.

downtown the buildings are old, and the architecture is so full of character, not like the brick boxes we live in. there are fire escapes and open windows and flower boxes. there's so much diversity. there are art museums, and theaters and dances in the streets, bands playing in the summer after work hours, parades, fountains, parks. you get the picture.

i guess i can keep on dreamin. it seems i'm stuck in the burbs...for now...!