No, I don't love every place in the world

Me: I don’t like you and I can’t wait to leave here. You make me miserable.

City: Blaming me for your unhappiness? You know, people are supposed to make the best of their situation. Have you tried that?

Me: Of course I have. Every single day I try. But you take, take, take, yet you give nothing but problems in return. Interestingly, I wanted to come to you badly years ago and couldn’t wait to join you. Then an unexpected detour took me to small city in the mountains. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I was taken by surprise when I realized that I didn’t want you, big city, anymore.

City: Wallowing in pity is not very becoming. If I am so bad, why did you leave small city to move here?

Me: My husband transferred. We had to follow the safety and security of a job. The golden handcuffs. Well, those golden handcuffs led me to this armpit of a city and now I’m stuck here to deal with it.

City: Armpit? You sound like a petulant child. Your home is very beautiful at the end of a peaceful cul-de-sac. The wooded lot is private and perfect for your children. Your neighbors are wonderful. You should be grateful.

Me: Grateful? I love my home very much and I am thankful for it. But the major renovations we had to do just to make it livable are another story . I have a difficult time trying to look at things in a positive way while I’m being slowly poisoned each day. A national study very recently confirmed my suspicions on the pollution--so I must correct the previous sentence to .....while I'm being poisoned very rapidly each day. The water we get from you comes from a polluted source where human waste and various other things that are undesirable to put in our bodies are dumped, put through filters with loads of chlorine thrown in and, ta-dah…clean water! Right. To add insult to injury we must pay a fortune for it. Small city was a place where the water was filtered through many layers of bedrock from deep within the earth and the city fiercely protected its watershed. Recreational activities, animals—none of those things were allowed anywhere near the water. Small city treats its water as the precious resource that it is.

City: Drink bottled water.

Me: Bottled water is expensive. This city is expensive. Another problem is the air, or lack of it. The smog is choking, especially in summer. There is a horrible, smoggy haze that is especially noxious in the heat of summer. Watching all of the joggers along the sidewalk, I wonder if the health benefits of jogging truly outweigh the danger of the toxic mixture of chemicals being sucked into their lungs with each deep breath.

Me: Oh and the traffic is stroke inducing. Once I got stuck in the middle of a seven lane freeway in a traffic gridlock and the car next to me caught on fire. A big fire. Horns blew as people went in every direction to clear the area. I didn’t get far before “POOF”. That’s the day I learned what a panic attack feels like.

City: Well you..

Me: Wait. I’m not finished. Another time a great big mattress fell off this teeny, tiny truck and bounced off my front windshield before I ran over it. In both incidents I had little children in the backseat. Thank God they were okay. Also, there is always furniture on or around the freeways. I imagine I could have furnished my home with the furniture I have nearly hit. Ladders seem to be an extremely popular item to lose on the freeways and they are very hard to dodge.

City: Why in the hell don’t you leave?  Do you think I really need you?

Me:  But, an odd thing recently happened. When I was stuck in traffic during a thunderstorm, the sun briefly came out and a huge rainbow stretched across the sky.  The rainbow was so close I  started to look for the end and suddenly, there it was.


City:  What?


Me:  The end of the rainbow.  The end of the rainbow was on the hood of my car.