Trish on Living Rural

Ahhh, my dear Trish. She goes for it and doesn't look back. Read and be inspired and then…get outside and breathe in some NATURE! 

1. Tell me three things about yourself.

I love to dance. Being in nature brings me great peace. I love a good laugh.

2. Who is in your family?

My husband Vaughn and our two daughters Freya (almost 5!) Zoe (2 and a half) our dog Herb and our cat Rosie.

3. Describe yourself in three words.

Determined, intelligent, caring.

4. Where do you live, and for how long have you lived there?

We live east of Erickson, Manitoba which is 10km south of Riding Mountain National Park. We have lived in this area for 9 years.

5. Did you always think you’d end up living in the country?

Yes. I grew up in a small town south of Winnipeg along the Red River and I knew I would live in the city for a stint but in my heart of hearts I've always been a country girl.

6. Describe your surroundings.

Our house sits a top a hill surrounded by farmers fields. The East overlooks a large lake called Otter Lake. We get to watch the sunrise over the lake in all her glory. My favorite is on hot summer mornings when the water looks like glass and the sun comes up and the light reflects off the surface of the lake whilst all the water fowl come alive with the breaking of a new day. It's breathtaking. To the North are the rolling hills of RMNP where there's miles upon miles of bush, to the South there's fields, bush and a small little airstrip. To the West there's more fields and rolling hills and an equally breathtaking view of the sunset. We are incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful spot. A couple of weeks ago Freya said this to me, "Mama, I love where we live. It is just such a special place. And I love the trees so much. Trees are a special kind of love. I feel so much love around all these trees."

7. How did you come to live in this place?

We moved to the area after a very challenging year in Winnipeg. I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, like the pace and energy of city living was suffocating me. So we searched for land, found a beautiful spot and made the craziest move out here! 

8. What is your favourite thing about living rural?

The space that it offers me and our family to grow and be close to nature.

9. What is your least favourite thing about living rural?

All the driving! It can be crazy making.

10. What did you love about living in a city?

That I could ride my bike everywhere that I needed to go.

11. What were you most happy to leave behind when you moved out of a city?

The vibrations of city living. By that I mean the pace, all the people and the lack of connection to any of those processes. I always feel so rattled after spending any amount of time in the city.

12. How do you feel coming home to your rural spot, after having been in a city?

Like I can breathe again! Big, full, deep breaths. 

13. How has living in the country affected how “connected” you feel to the rhythms of the earth? For example, hearing the birds, seeing the sun rise and set, noticing the stars…what impact does that have?

I cannot downplay the affect of these natural rhythms on my life and the lives of my family members. Freya can identify pretty much any wild animal that lives in the area, including specific species of birds, "Hey Mama, I just saw a Purple Finch!" or Zoe “A special thing just happened Mama! Two hawks flew over our house!” (They weren’t really hawks but I have to admit that I was impressed that she assigned a species to the birds that flew overhead!)  When we go to bed at night its quiet and dark or the sky is alive with northern lights or the full moon. We watch the sunrise over the lake everyday and set in the hills every evening. I feel rooted and connected to the land around me and the natural processes that occur with each changing season. It feels like home. I sometimes wonder how this landscape will become a part of my children or how they will internalize this landscape. I believe that our connection to the natural rhythms of the earth is fundamental to the ways in which we all learn and grow.

14. Does it get lonely?

No and yes. I have two small children so I'm NEVER alone! Ha ha! But I have felt isolated from others at times. Like in the dead of winter when we've been snowed in for days on end and I feel as though we'll never get out. Otherwise we have an amazing community of extremely lovely, talented and intelligent people here. While the pace of living feels slower than in the city, there's absolutely no shortage of things to do around here.

15. How do you think about/ or do employment differently in the country than the city? Do you find there are less options, or more?

There aren't as many job options but there are still many opportunities to find good paying, fulfilling work. It’s different than the city, but I’m ok with that. Right now I’m not really focused on a career outside of motherhood. It’s the hardest and shittiest paying job I’ve ever had, but I do love it!

16. Describe the difference between friendships/community in the city where you lived and the country where you now live? I mean, how do people socialize or do community differently, in your experience?   

              

 I wouldn’t say that its all that different. I mean, obviously there’s far less people here than in Winnipeg so that whole ‘small town’ stigma definitely applies. It’s impossible to like everyone but in a rural setting you kind of have to figure out how to find something likable within everyone. I like to see it as a sort of challenge. We are connected with lots of families in the area so we have potlucks, we help each other out with projects, we take care of each others children, we have community events and support one another. Just like good friends do no matter where you’re situated.

17. What has surprised you about living rural?                 

How little money we spend in comparison to city living. That was the most remarkable thing to us the first year that we lived here.

18. What do you imagine will be the biggest impact on your kids, of living in the country instead of the city?               

                                                                       I truly believe that their natural surroundings plays an integral role in their development. My children will not suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder! They are still so little and yet they understand or are incredibly tuned in to the natural rhythms of their surroundings. I cannot say for sure, but I can imagine that this would be a difficult thing to offer a child living in the city.

19. Can you say something about how quality of life has changed for you since living rural?         

                                                                                               

 I am more comfortable with my life. I find great peace in being outdoors and I’m more “together” than I ever was as an urbanite. I remember feeling very anxious when I lived in the city. It’s very rare for me to suffer from anxiety out here because I have the ability to step outdoors into a vast amount of space and soak it all up. I’m much more grounded. I feel at ease here.

20. Tell me about the wildlife around you. What’s a magical moment you’ve had in nature lately?                 

We have an abundant amount of creatures big and small living in the area all around us. Wolves, coyotes, lynx, cougars, black bears, moose, elk, deer, snowshoe hare, great grey owls, bald eagles, pelicans, countless species of birds and many beautiful insects. Just the other day I was out on a birding workshop and I watched a trumpeter swan on the lake while some elk walked along the edge of the adjacent meadow. It was pure magic. Nature is so perfectly beautiful. Oh and then there was the day not so long ago when I locked eyes with a lynx. What a gift from such an elusive creature!

Kate on why a strong network of women matters for individual and collective health

We met in the middle. Kate rushed over from her busy and tough job and her wild and free existence in Point Douglas; I snuck away from my baby, my toy-filled, dog and cat-filled family house in the west end. We drank wine overlooking Portage Avenue while Kate ripped confidently through my interview. I love her, Kate. She's intense, she's so bright, she's figuring-it-out.

1.     Tell me three things about you.

I live in Point Douglas.

I strongly love the land between Minnedosa and Riding Mountain National Park.

I have two brothers that I love a lot.

2.     Give me three words to describe you.

Intense. Bright. Figuring-it-out.

3.     Growing up, who were important women in your life and why?

My auntie Donna, because she really had a different life than a lot of the adult women that I knew growing up and I was really interested in her.

My mom, obviously, because she really loved her kids a lot. She really made us a priority, like moms do, overtop of whatever she wanted.

I’ve known a lot of elderly, middle-aged women who took an interest in me and took me seriously as a human being.

4.     Describe your relationship with other females in junior high and high school.

I was lucky to have a lot of friends, but I don’t know that I felt that way at that time. That’s a really hard time, when you don’t know what the social rules are, and relationships are so fraught with whether you do things the right way or the wrong way. I don’t remember high school being amazing, but I did have some very rich times.

5.     What is one of your first memories of noticing friendships between women?

The friendships I had in elementary school, and with kids down the street. I remember feeling much more at home hanging out with boys than girls and feeling rather suspicious about girls. It was simpler. There were more rules that could be broken with girls. But I do remember a few girls that I really wanted to spend time with and felt totally at ease with, which I think is lucky.

6.     How did you come to be part of a strong network of women?

Looking for it. And actively building it on purpose, because I needed it. It came out of my needs with work. I needed help, and the people I got help from happened to be in the same job I was in. It’s that network of people that has spread out more, and is very solid.

7.     Tell me about these women.

We’re all so fucking weird and great and just willing to do great things for one another and willing to be goofy and willing to put up with each others’ shit and willing to let each person be the way they are which is really different from one another. There’s a strong value of health, but health in moderation. A very liberal view of whatever health means.

8.     How different would life be without them?

Boring. Lonely. Suburban. Limited. And maybe not so real.

9.     What supports your connection with other women friends?

Love. Because I want to see them all the time. Maybe that’s true for them, maybe not, but that’s why I spend so much time in the west end. We are a mutually supportive group of people who are there, in part, to help each other out. These relationships are as practical as they are romantic and goofy and kitchy. I would spend a lot of money on a psychologist or more astronomy if I didn’t have this group of people. There’s an active purpose for why we see each other.

10. How do some women find themselves without this kind of network?

Yeah, that happens a lot. That’s so fucking depressing. People being lonely and alone is a product of how we are more properly organized. We’re organized to have a relationship with TLC television shows, IKEA, and Club Monaco, and our lawns and the foundations of our houses. We’re not really set up to encourage loving networks of support, unless we really make it a priority. And even then it’s really hard. I don’t have kids or a house, it’s really easy for me to go and spend time with people.

11. What’s unique about female friendship?

I don’t know because I don’t have a penis.

12. What is difficult about female friendship?

Nothing?

13. What could we learn from other cultures or groups who do female friendship well?

There’s a group of women in France who saw themselves in the future being old and not necessarily able to be taken care of by young people or the state and organized a co-op of intergenerational women who collectivized taking care of each other, and to reduce isolation. The purposeful thinking ahead is smart and maybe is happening here. There are those of us who aren’t married and without kids who that could be really useful for.

14. What’s got in the way of you connecting with other women at times? What was the impact on your health?

My own lack of self-confidence and inability to be myself regardless of what I thought the other person was thinking of me. The impact of that was a nervous breakdown and longterm depression.

15. What would you guess has been the impact of being part of a community of women on your own health?

Oh my god. 80% more wellness than otherwise.

16. What are some fun times you’ve had with female friends recently?

My friend Sue held a stuff swap which is a bunch of women stripping and exchanging and fighting over clothes with games that Sue made up. It was all about people not taking themselves seriously.

17. What’s the wildest time you’ve ever had with female friends?

I have had depression. I have had depression in a very public way in that it incurred life choices that are way off the map. Some of this group visited me very far away during this time, and have been open to the whole process of figuring it out. Folks were in the shit with me. And folks who were newer were open to being in the shit and had their own stories. I live a life that is kind of weird according to what is normal. Lots of us in this group do. Lots of those iterations are actually celebrated and unhidden and new iterations in individual humans are also celebrated. Which is spectacular, because groups can be static. And when I say group, it’s fluid, there’s not just 8 people.

18. Can you summarize your thoughts on how a strong network of women does impact individual and collective health?

We are meant to be connected. We are organisms on this planet. We would love to be separated but that’s impossible. It’s okay for people to be introverts, and I am that a lot of the time, but we need faces and we need touch and we need laughter and we need to be able to notice things with other people, whether it’s what’s happening in nature, with our families, or with ourselves. It’s nice when you can get to know people over a long period of time. There’s something about people seeing your shit that is good.

19. Talk to me about pranks.

I love pranks I’m way better at planning them than receiving them, I get a bit snobby. Why aren’t there more pranks? We should be having way more fun at each other’s expense and so I think there should be more pranks.

20. At the end of your life, where/who/how will you be, thanks to being connected with a strong network of women?

I’ll be very happy. Very fulfilled. I’ll feel really lucky. If that’s all that happens, it’s great.

Bailey on Losing her Faith

It takes courage to sit with uncertainty. It also takes courage to be interviewed about uncertainty. I'm thankful to Bailey for her straight-up, refreshing honesty.

Tell me three things about you.

I am a reader, a lindyhopper, and a warm-weather person.

Who is in your family?

Our little family is myself, my husband, our grown son, and a dog.

How would the people that love you the most describe you?

Thoughtful, organized, caring, committed, loyal.

Can you define, from your perspective, faith?

Faith is confidence in something, and in this context it is a belief and confidence in God – his existence and his involvement.

How did faith play a role in your upbringing?

My childhood family was religious, but faith was not a part of our home life. We were taught the religious rules and it was expected that we would follow them. It was rather like a cultural norm.

Can you remember when you first found your faith?

Church was a regular part of our lives when I was a child, but faith became personally important to me in stages. As a teenager I had some good youth leaders and youth pastors, and my understanding of faith grew. After high school I went to Bible college for a year and for the first time lived with people who were serious about following God.

Describe yourself in a few words when you still had your faith.

I was earnest about following and pleasing God: I read & memorized scripture, prayed regularly, volunteered in the church & community, and read extensively about faith and theology.  Being a believer was serious, since my understanding of it required full surrender of one’s will, but it was worthwhile because it was a relationship with the source of love and power and holiness. When I had faith, it was the most central part of my identity.

Describe your perception of the world around you when you had your faith.

My church background is evangelical, so we were taught to “spread the good news.”  This made the world a tricky place, especially in suburbia where people are generally happy with their lives and do not want to hear about sin or contemplate the kind of changes required to be devoted to God.  We believed that the world was a separate place from the church, and it was in need of redemption.

Can you speak to what led to you losing your faith?  Is there a way that you can describe the process of losing your faith?

I do not understand the cause; I only know that the constant presence of God that had been with me for as long as I could remember was no longer there. The relationship that made the sacrifices of faithful living worthwhile was gone. What I had believed to be true no longer was. It was not possible for me to believe in God if I could not discern his presence.

What was important or helpful during that transition?

My husband was loving & accepting and was less freaked out than I was, even though he continued in faith. I had one other friend who could accept the gravity of the loss and was not afraid to talk about it, which was deeply appreciated (thanks W!).

Also important was reading accounts of others who experienced silence from God, such as Mother Teresa and Saint Terese of Liseux (Catholics seem more inclined to admit to experiencing a dark night of the soul).

What was painful about it?

Faith had been the central part of my identity, so the most painful part was not knowing who I was or why I was here. I had to grapple with what my life’s purpose was if it wasn’t to worship & glorify God.

Another crippling thing was the loneliness from the loss of the relationship with God and his constant presence. I was accustomed to ‘conversing’ with God throughout my day, turning to him in joy or in pain; this was gone, and I felt hollow and alone and foolish.

It was also painful to lose friendships that were based on faith and on church, as nearly all my friendships were. My social life dried up.

I sought help and advice from my pastors but was told they had no exposure to this issue and therefore they were of little help. It was discouraging and I felt that I was being labelled as a freak.

How did you know that you had lost your faith?

I wasn’t willing anymore to make choices based on obedience to God, because I didn’t believe he was real. It was kind of a Santa Claus situation, but with more far-reaching implications.

How does the world look different having lost your faith?

I am perhaps now more in sync with the wider world, since my life does not revolve around a deity. I feel less conflicted about what I do and how I spend my time. I am more open-minded, but also more willing to express hatred or violence.

Church looks very different - mostly it looks like an absurd waste of time; occasionally it is something that I wish I could still be part of. 

Are there benefits for you now, having lost your faith?

As I mentioned, I generally feel less conflicted about my actions and thoughts, since the concern to please/follow God is gone. Also: I get to sleep in on Sunday mornings!

What is more difficult now?

Not having a meta-purpose to life is hard to get used to. The loss of God’s presence and the purpose it gave me started a landslide of depression.

Spending time with religious friends and family is much more difficult – I see them as both deluded & fortunate.

How would you describe yourself in a few words, as a person who has lost her faith?

I am still unsettled: alternately appalled by the waste of time & energy on faith for so many years, and wishful for the ability to return to relationship with God.

What brings you peace? Joy?

I can find peace in the embrace of someone who loves me. Peace is sometimes in a warm bed when I don’t have to get up yet, or in the muted colors of gliding on a tiny river in a kayak.  There is joy in great music and good dancing. There is joy in a good story and in wonderful writing and unexpected perfect phrases in books. Receiving real mail brings joy too.

Have your fears changed since losing your faith?

Yes, I’m afraid of not figuring out what my life is for, and of spiraling into a deeper depression of unmotivation.  I’m also afraid of losing more relationships if folks don’t want to be close friends with a non-believer; this causes me to downplay my doubts and just not talk about the issue at all.

At the end of your life, what difference will it have made, to have at one point lost your faith?

I cannot see the future, but I imagine that the change in my life related to not being a church-person anymore is quite large. I have more time for other interests and other people (but I don’t have the skills to fit in to the social scene outside of church).

There is still a flicker of hope in me that God’s presence will someday return, or I will find a way to have faith without it. If that does happen, this dark time may help me better understand other doubters.