Living A Little Far From Town
I have arrived, I am home, In the here & now
Right now as I am typing this blog post, I am sitting on the covered porch of our cabin in the woods here at Empty Mountain in a swinging sky chair. The sun is shining and the sky is a muted under-shade of powder blue, dotted with late August white puff-ball clouds. It’s 84-degrees out. So in other words: life is good.
Back when we were on the active search for land, our original search radius was within 20-30 minutes of Missoula. There was a ton for sale within that proximity to Missoula, but the properties on the market were either way above our price point or the land itself had very little usable area (translation: basically you would be purchasing a mountainside. So if you happen to be a mountain goat, you’d be set!). After thinking and rethinking our options, we decided we didn’t want to get a loan to buy the land, so we were locked into the relatively small price range we had, using the money we got when we sold our house (with a little left over). Our search area got wider and wider as time went on.
We felt - and still feel - very glad to have found the land where we now reside, which is about 60-miles from Missoula. With a car that is capable of going the speed limit posted on our interstate (80mph), and a driver that enjoys driving fast (like me!), a gal can make it from EM to Missoula in 45-minutes. In a 10-minute drive, we also have the lovely small town of Superior, Montana, with a population of 940 (or 830 according to the last census in 2020). Superior has a lot of amenities for a small town, but Missoula is the closest big town with all the things a place hosting a larger population base has.
We all have different things we’re looking for when it comes to where we want to live and be. We all value different things. We are all willing, or not willing, to make certain sacrifices based on the conditions and factors present in our current way of living and what matters most to us. And I am pretty convinced that literally every single place a person could live on this lovely spinning planet earth has its pros and cons. There is no utopia. No perfect place. And. I also think that certain places align more with what we value and are looking for and are interested in than others. Not only are there places that are simply not our cup of tea, I also believe there are places we could live that would kill our spirit if we lived there. Where we live matters. Whether we feel in alignment with where we live matters. It matters a lot. I believe there are places more designed for us to feel at home and thrive, not in a universal sense but on a personal level. And also. Things change. Where we feel at home and want to be when we’re in our 20’s versus in our 40’s might be entirely different places.
The location of where we live is an interesting topic to explore. For many of us, we live where it makes the most sense, whether we were born there and stayed there or moved elsewhere for school or work or to be closer to family. Maybe we’re in the military and we live where we get sent to and we move around frequently. Or maybe we live where we live because we visited somewhere on vacation and fell in love and decided it was our happy place. For some of us, if we have the luxury and privilege and access to enough resources, we can actively & consciously choose where we want to live and be. We can identify our values and the things that matter most to us and we make an informed decision about where and how we want to live.
When Mike and I sold our house in Missoula in September of 2021 and took a big leap into the Great Unknown, hoping we would find land we could afford to buy, we had never lived in a rural setting. Well. Not as adults anyway. Mike was born and spent a lot of time in eastern Montana on his grandparents farm, so he had childhood roots living more remotely. But mostly he grew up in Missoula. We knew enough to know we were ready to move out of Missoula and start the seeds of Empty Mountain, but the learning curve would be hella steep. Not only did we choose to buy land that was without electricity or running water, but we chose land that was situated 60-miles from the nearest big town (aka Missoula). So we were simultaneously learning how to live off-grid with the need to haul water, while also living an hour from the closest place to buy all sorts of things we would need, or fetch our mail for the stuff we needed to purchase online. And all whilst living in our van as we built our cabin.
Now that we have entered our fourth year living in the woods, we’ve learned a lot and have improved our living systems gradually over time (which will continue to be improved as we continue to learn and grow in infrastructure). One of the things we’ve learned is that we enjoy living remotely in the woods. We enjoy not living in the hustle & bustle of town. And. Sometimes it’s a hassle to live a little far from town.
For the past month or so it’s been a pain to live further from a bigger town. Turns out, when you’re looking for a new-used car, it adds a fair amount of friction (to an already not fun time) when the closest vehicles to look at for sale are a one-hour drive away, one way. We’ve both had doctor’s appointments as well, which meant added trips to Missoula. And then we have material runs for our current build project: the woodfire sauna, which we’re hoping to get operational before the snow flys. We do our best to combine trips to big-T town, as I like to sometimes call Missoula (versus little-T town, which means Superior), and be as efficient with our gas usage as possible, but sometimes making big-T town trips multi-functional and multi-purpose is quite difficult. Sometimes, also, we have to honor our limited energy and just make two different treks to town on two different days.
Still. Here’s the thing. Since every place has its upsides and downsides, even though it’s been a real hassle this past month, we are quite happy to exchange living in or close to a big town in order to live surrounded by the loveliness & spaciousness of the woods. Some people value being able to walk or bike to work. Some people value living somewhere that has an active nightlife scene. Some people value living with more space and quiet and less people. Alas I return back to one of my favorite things to keep close in mind: there are as many ways to live a good life as the number of people that are present on the planet.
Yes. Sometimes it’s anywhere from inconvenient to a real hardship to live a little far from a bigger town. But this is what we signed up for. We opted in and made a choice to live a different way of life. And it is a very different way of living that we’ve embarked upon. Our usages of time have changed. Some of our priorities have changed. Some of our values have changed. For me, it took a little while to no longer feel the loss of living in Missoula. But the grief of moving was normal; necessary; part of the process of making a big new life-change move. It is clear to me that I have no interest in being someone who doesn’t feel sorrow when I part company from the places and people I cherish most. And I will tell you, gosh, I so dearly enjoy living in a place that has the elements of quietude, stillness, and ease. We are surrounded by the beauty of nature every day and that is such a luxury, a gift, and a treasure. There is no pavement where we live. Wherever we walk we are on the earth-ground. When we look around, all we can see is trees, and a little bit of a mountainside to the east. Animals visit our homestead frequently. It’s freakin amazing.
Even when the sadness of leaving Missoula was real for me, it didn’t take long after moving into the woods for me to think, much to my surprise actually, that with how nourishing and enlivening it feels for me to live where we do, I’m not sure I could actually move back to town now, big or small. It’s really really nice not having close-by neighbors. To have space and privacy and wilderness all around. To not live with the constant sound of traffic and forever movement of people and the noise of industry. To spend time outside every day with very few, if any, other people around. To be surrounded by tree-teachers, modeling for us how we truly want to live.
Sometimes it would be nice to be able to get to certain places quick-as-a-cricket, like my friend’s house in Missoula when she hosted a gathering at her place last weekend. But I am happy as a clam living remotely in the woods. And most of the time, I don’t mind at all the drive. It’s an easy drive, with the great bonus of being chock-full of beautiful scenery all along the way. As a poet, a writer, a meditation practitioner, and as more of an introvert, the woods suits me well. Mike too, though for different reasons. Indeed I feel very fortunate to call Empty Mountain home. This place isn’t for everyone - in fact, I would say it’s not for the vast majority of people - but then, no one place is the best place for everyone. If we’re lucky, we find the place that fits us best for however long, until something changes that spurs us in a new direction. Or maybe where we were born is our forever home. There will never be only one right way to live a good life. And my sincere hope for all of us and everyone is that we find the place that can bring us joy and ease in the here & now.