Confessions of a City Girl (something I wrote back in 2001)

I am a city girl. I used to think that was something to make excuses about but then I grew and now I know life is too hard to stress over things like that.

There are some things that I get and some things that I don't about the world and its attitude about cities.

I like my peaches and spinach out of cans. I trust that tinny taste. It tells me that the world will go on.

I like to go camping so long as that includes a Holiday Inn and running water. I understand the difference between going camping and going to a hotel. Hotels have room service.

Freeways make sense to me. Dirt back roads with worm eaten signs saying "county cemetery, 2 miles" don't.

Crime bothers me but it doesn't scare me. It is a fact of life, like cops and donut shops.

I don't get all the hoopla over sunrise but I love to watch the sunset.

I love the ocean and the beach and someday I will have a beachfront condo...with maid service and trash pickup.

I don't get dirt. Supposedly it is therapeutic to work the land and till the soil and all that stuff. Paying someone to mow the lawn is as close as I get to that and it is close enough.

I do get rain. I love rain. I love the way it sounds when it falls on a tin roof. I love the way it smells when it is coming a long way off and not quite here yet. I love the way the sunlight reflects off and around and through it. I love to watch those first few drops splatter on a dry, dusty sidewalk. I love rain.

Give me noise for peaceful slumber. Sirens, trains, and planes over head make for pleasant dreams. Silent nights are for scary stories and fairy tales.

I understand dead bolts. I understand locking the door evan when you are home on a bright sun-shiny day. That is practical, that is reality. I will know who enters here.

I live and love and breath and die...a city girl.

Jacquline Sarver 10-10-2001