Too Good for the Countryside
When Emily realized her exams were going to take longer than expected this time, she was thrilled. Last summer was spent in the countryside, and she hadn’t enjoyed it one bit. After spending several years living in her aunt’s house in the city during college, she had grown so accustomed to city life that the thought of returning to her hometown was unappealing.
While studying at the university, she embraced the independence and the various comforts of city life and had no desire to head back to the countryside. She had grown up there, but now everything in her hometown seemed absurd and ridiculous to her.
Running a household, livestock, local folks, constant chores, and trivial worries. No lattes made with alternative milk at a café, no clubs, and no restaurants. Even the internet refused to work properly in that backwater place. Really frustrating!
Forget about the tube and taxis for the summer, although there wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. Instead, you would be greeted by barking dogs everywhere, as if they had nothing better to do, and in the mornings, the roosters would crow loudly because they were the most awake of all.
One gets used to the good life quickly. Emily adapted to city life in five years – three in college and two at university.
Emily’s aunt, Aunt Susan, left home when she was young and moved to the city, and Emily respected her for it. Spending time in the countryside didn’t excite the young student, but she couldn’t say no to her mom.
Sure, she missed her mom, but the thought of hard work in the garden and around the house, with none of the usual city entertainments and basic comforts she couldn’t imagine living without, did not appeal to her.
For heaven’s sake, there wasn’t even an air conditioner in the house! How does one live like that?
Country folk seemed dull and limited to her. The local girls weren’t aware of highlighters, dating apps, or Netflix. When asked what they watched without Netflix, they vaguely answered, “TV.”
– And how do you meet guys without dating apps?
– Why meet anyone? Everyone knows everyone.
Emily recalled last summer with a shudder. She never managed to feel at home in her birthplace. All three months, she waited for summer to end and yearned to return to her familiar environment. And now, at the end of June, she was headed back…
Train, then the local rail service. Through the misted-up window, fields and forests passed by. The local service took her further away from civilization, and her heart ached.
And the journey wasn’t over – the local service stopped at a regional hub with dreary flats, from where a bus went to the country village. Calling it a bus was generous – more like a shed on wheels. Things would only get worse.
As Emily neared the end of her journey, she cursed everyone – the driver, who seemed to hit every bump in the road on purpose, herself for agreeing to return home instead of staying in her dorm or with her aunt, her mother for having her in the countryside, and the list went on.
Upon stepping off the bus, she fell into her mother’s arms.
– Let me give you a kiss! I haven’t seen my little girl in a year! – exclaimed Jane happily.
– Mum! – grumbled Emily, softening just a bit. – That’s enough, let go.
– Why the grumpy face? – her mom asked with a smile, taking two-thirds of the bags. – Cheer up, you’re home, and there’s a whole summer ahead!
– That’s what scares me! – groaned the daughter. – A summer in the countryside…
– The air here is cleaner and the environment healthier, – Jane replied firmly. – That’s a fact! And people here are kinder, everyone’s lives are open to view.
– Everyone knows everything! – Emily echoed. – Just like Dad would always say – in one end of the village someone sneezed, and by the time it reaches the other end, the whole village knows!
– Your dad didn’t phrase it quite like that! – laughed her mom. – But it’s not all bad. It brings responsibility. Everyone knows everything, so people behave decently, or at least try to. Fools are everywhere, even in the city.
– Like people who think sushi is just raw fish with rice; can they really be called decent? – seeing her daughter’s puzzled expression, Jane laughed.
– You’re just young! You get your nose up in the air over little things. The only thing that’s worse here is the dirt roads. That’s undeniable.
That seemed to be the end of that discussion. Yet, in reality, the mother and daughter returned to this topic repeatedly. Everything irritated Emily, from country food to the howling dogs, but it was the people, who were oblivious to a larger world, that annoyed her the most. She felt like an outsider among them.
– Don’t be so conceited! – coaxed Jane, sometimes realizing she was saying this for the fifth time that day. It was like talking to a wall.
Maybe the child just liked feeling different from everyone else, better? Although, she wasn’t a child anymore. Jane herself was a mother at that age. She didn’t understand why her daughter liked feeling superior so much. Was it unsettling that she, too, was once a local and couldn’t fully accept it?
Emily soon got used to the morning roosters, work in the vegetable patch, and even to the lack of entertainment, aside from library nights and occasional amateur accordion concerts at the town hall.
She might have gotten used to all this, but not to the people. Every country resident seemed pathetic and clueless. Emily couldn’t understand why none of them left as she or her aunt had, to seek a different life.
It was as if they were stuck in this world of ignorance and illiteracy. And they were perfectly content!
– They like it! – explained her mother. – They don’t know any different.
– If one doesn’t expand one’s horizons, they’ll never know things are better beyond them! – Emily agreed. – But why does nobody try to live like a civilized person even in these conditions? Engage in self-education? Creativity? Study science?
– When? – Jane laughed. – There’s plowing to do, logs to chop, a stove to tend, milk a cow…
– The domestic drudgery appalls me! – Emily said with disgust.
– Oh, come on, don’t look down on them as if they’re mere peasants. It’s just a lifestyle you’re not used to. I lived in the city; there’s a range there as well. Have you forgotten how you were when little? You liked it here! I remember you sitting on the porch and picking your nose with Natasha, your friend. Munching on carrots straight from the bucket before I could wash them. Chasing chickens and running from the hens! Forgotten?
– I forgot and don’t want to remember! – replied Emily defiantly. – “People in the city are still different,” – she thought but kept silent.
In the city, she quickly fit in with her student group. Her interests were understood and accepted both in college and university. Here, there wasn’t even anyone to talk to. Emily felt lonely.
– The fact that I could save for your education in the city doesn’t mean you’re vastly different from everyone else! – noted her mother.
– I am different! – insisted Emily haughtily.
– Do you like feeling that way?
– What do you mean?
– Feeling superior! Do you enjoy knowing that you’re smarter than everyone here? Does it make you feel better?
Emily pondered. At first, she wanted to deny it, but then she analyzed her feelings and nodded. Her mother sighed. Perhaps the daughter’s behavior was indeed a result of low self-esteem. In most other situations, there’s no joy in raising oneself by diminishing others.
– Yes, I think I’m better! – Emily declared. – Everyone here is an idiot.
– Me too?
– No, you’re okay. Aunt Susan too. But the others, they don’t know anything. I talked with the local English teacher the other day. In my opinion, teachers should be the most educated people in areas without research centers or universities. Well, this English teacher had no idea about the progression of genre theory through a semiotic triad – from syntax to semantics and on to pragmatics! Let alone being able to quote appellative triads!
– I’m not quite clued up on what that is either! – remarked her mother and chuckled, looking at Emily disapprovingly. – So, I guess I’m an idiot too? Who were you speaking to, Emma?
– Yes, that’s right. She wears glasses and seems an awkward lady.
– Emma teaches English in primary school. They do simple phrases, not your semantics or whatever you called it.
– But she should know English herself!
– Of course, she should. And she knows it well enough to teach students from the first to fourth grade in accordance with our national curriculum! – her mother patiently explained.
– That’s exactly my point! – Emily nodded. – And there’s no further development. Even I know this, and it’s not even my field.
– I just don’t understand why you’re so proud of it? Not everyone can be a walking encyclopedia; people have different paths! – Jane was losing patience. – Maybe you know more than others, but that doesn’t make you wiser. Imagine if you found yourself among people who were much smarter than you. They’d view you as a clueless country girl. Would you like that?
– That won’t happen! – Emily retorted a bit too sharply. – I can always hold a conversation with an educated person.
– Don’t be so sure of that, my dear! Did you feel this pride in the city as well?
Emily thought for a moment.
– The city has more people of my level.
– What level?
– Higher than in the countryside! – Emily was annoyed because her mom looked at her like she was a child about to stomp her foot and cry. – There, I don’t feel lonely, although at first it wasn’t easy.
– Really? It was tough?
– Yes, of course. They say you can take the person out of the village, but not the village out of the person. Sure, I still had traces… of all this. I wasn’t exactly popular at first.
– It bothered you?
– Yes, it did! But I had to learn to live and behave differently. There’s nothing left in me for which they could judge me.
– And now you judge others?
– Do you really think it’s arrogance?
– Yes. And self-esteem issues. You brag about knowing something, forgetting countless things you don’t understand. You look down on the locals, as if they are mere animals and not living people. Yes, they don’t read volumes on history, have barely any interest in politics, and never visit an opera. But what level of knowledge should they have here? Who taught them? And by the way, you haven’t completely rid yourself of local habits!
– I have completely! – Emily protested.
– I haven’t heard anyone in the city use terms like “ain’t” or “nifty,” and you’ve said both today! – her mom slyly noted.
– But I…
– What? Unpleasant? Don’t judge people, and don’t speak just for yourself. I sent you to university; you studied. Think about them. All those people you look down on. You studied at university for two years, before that, college while living with your aunt. You know things about language, literature, history, good for you, keep it up! But they know how to cultivate the land. When is the best time to grow different vegetables. What herbs can treat illnesses without antibiotics. Do you know any of this?
Emily hesitated.
– I don’t because I didn’t study that! – she managed to answer.
– Actually, you could have learned, having been raised at home. Before college, but those skills have slipped by you. And now you judge others for being limited! – laughed Jane. – Think about that.
Emily fell silent. It was unpleasant to be judged by her own mother. Over what? For not loving gardening or washing piles of plates, constantly birthing cats, or creepy praying mantises in the tall grass?
She might have liked to say she wasn’t raised for this, but that could be debated.
For a second, the thought crossed her mind to get a job at the local school. To start some extra classes to develop these country folk, or at least their children, to make them more educated. But within a minute, she dismissed the idea. Would they find the time between planting cucumbers and digging potatoes? It likely wouldn’t make a difference. Why waste the effort?
Emily stopped arguing with her mother about country life and its people. Evidently, Mom wasn’t far removed from them herself. Years of rural life had left their mark on her mind. She wouldn’t understand!
Just endure this summer, and next summer find a job in the city or better yet, get married so there’d be no question of being brought home again.
