Living in the Bush

I will, throughout this blog, refer to life "in the bush." This phrase may be unfamiliar to you. For the sake of clarification, I've devised this little scale:

-Large buildings, taxi cabs, ethnic deli, too many cars to make a left hand turn, busses, people who can tell the difference between Szechwan and Cantonese food, six lanes of traffic, something different to do every night. 24 screen movie theaters. = Urban

-Sidewalks, houses built on a theme, strip malls, people who can tell the difference between Chinese and Thai food, four lanes of traffic, something to do different every night if we count hanging out at the mall and going to the movies as two things. 12 screen theaters. = Suburban

-Irrigation ditches, cows, tractors, can cross roads without crosswalks, people have Chinese Food, two lanes of road, 1 or 2 screen theaters. = Rural

-Groceries flown in, people flown in, there's frozen egg rolls in the store, dirt roads in town, no roads leading out of town, "We get Netflix" = Bush

I'm sure someone will disagree with my classifications. There may be bush towns with pavement, or urban cities without ethnic food, but as far as I can tell, these about sum it up. 

It turns out that I'm not a city girl. I don't function well there. When I head home for the summer, I fly from Shishmaref to Nome, which, while it thinks it's a city, really qualifies as suburban at best. I have to monitor my behavior closely, as I'm not allowed to pick up any little kid I see at the store. In Shishmaref, I know them all, or at least they know me. In Nome, I'm just some odd stranger. 

When the plane lands in Seattle, the traffic scares me, everyone drives too close together, and too fast. The buildings are too tall, everyone is a stranger, and 'conveniences' are freakishly expensive. I don't breathe easy again until the bus hits the open road, and there start being more trees than cars.