Tuesday, 31st December 2002, 12:38am
An opinion by: Noemi

 

Email from the edge: Two Weeks in the Country by Noemi LoPinto

I am home!

My early I-love-the-country euphoria wore off around day three. I am soooo happy to be back here, in the good ol' city, where ice cream is only a blockaway and people do tai chi in the parks. I am covered in bug bites and ready to stay in the city for a while. I have another farm appointment in two weeks, which I guess I will honor, but right now I feel like never leaving the stinky, polluted, dysfunctional city again. I am loving my friends, my annoying neighbors. So, you must be wondering: why the turnaround?

It's because country life, if you didn't know it before, consists of doing a series of thankless tasks that rob you of your youth and vitality while simultaneously giving you endless time without cable, high speed internet or street festivals, to contemplate the ravages. The scenery, while lovely, never changes, and the people -bleh- never fucking mind!!!

I have never seen such a motley crue of genetic rejects in my life, ugly, knock-kneed pimply skinny fat mousy brown hair or none at all hippies with nothing to do but torture each other in pointless, codependent relationships which are somehow superior to city ones because at least they are not bloodsucking city varmints with no connection to the land. Which may very well enough be true. I noticed the quebec countryside has yet to become emancipated- lotsa ignored farm wives toiling alongside mealy-mouthed emotionally retarded farmer husbands who hide behind the paper when they get home.

I loved the bus I lived in.

When I left here my friends were social assistance rejects, artists farting on canvases and toiling away in the emptiness, polluting and raising idiot children while simultaneously torturing me and mine, as I find myself unable to tear myself away from their poison claws. Now that I have seen country life, my friends are struggling artists seeking to create a bridge between their artistic integrity in extreme financial duress, some of whom I am very very glad to come home to and suck the poison lovingly from under their manicured nails.

Furthermore, while I have never been hornier in my life ( got my period today- ahhhhhhhh relief), there was nobody even remotely cute nearby ( see line 8) and I myself have never been uglier. I developped an allergic reaction to mosquito bites, my delicate skin swelled up where I was bitten, and the itching drove me nuts. The back of my neck looks like a teenager's face. My hair, already problematic as it is, swelled up like medusa's, complete with bugs and snakes writhing out from within the curls. The wind played havoc with it, dried my skin, my hands became a crone's. I am usually a pretty girl, if not beautiful. But on both farms, I would say I barely passed for plain.

I came screaming back to the city in a beat up old dodge caravan, sitting on a crate of organic asparagus, with a bickering hippie couple sitting in the back seat and me and the driver talking about what fools, what morons, what cowards men are (present company temporarily excepted).

Also: my relationship with M---. When I left, and when I first got there, I was bemoaning my fate a lot, wondering where I went wrong, and was he the love of my life etc etc. But there were a lot of similarities between him and the couple I was staying with until today- and watching them hash it out, I realised I may have escaped a similar fate. M---- came from the same boring, plain, conservative roots- and emotionally he was fucking autistic, just like this guy, D----, my host. So I don't know- I'm starting to feel like losing him was escaping a fate worse than Divorce. And I'm regaining my sense of "he didn't deserve me anyway".

And my daughter was such a brat! I have no idea what happened to her, but she was whiny, disobedient, disrespectful, spoiled and made me nuts, the last two days. I actually had to discipline her, which I haven't had to do in months. ( putting her in her room-in the bus- etc) I couldn't wait to get home, if only to not have to be so embarassed in front of these strangers with this incredibly polite, docile child they had. I kept telling myself at least Sadie had spirit- but it was small comfort when she was trying to rip the shoes off the other kids' feet and spitting spinach on the clean wood floors.

so... go to the country, its a real mind fuck, and it'll knock some sense into you. Worked for me. Neither of my two experiences on the farm were exactly out of Steinbeck- but I sure learned a lot. I'm grateful for my life here, right now. When I get sick of it again, I'll do something else. I'm thinking of Australia, next.

Noemi.

PS- chickens are really stupid- and they stink! If I ever eat chicken again, which I won't without shuddering, I won't feel so bad. And horses scare me, as do big fat pigs.

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