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Twenty years ago I would not have been able to move to the mountains.
I’m a city mouse: I’ve lived in or near a big city all my life. I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago with 80,000 people and home of the prestigious Northwestern University. After graduating that university, I moved to Los Angeles where I spent the next twenty years in the computer industry. I am an internet programmer, and because of the internet, I can work from home. And it’s only because of the internet, I can now live in a small mountain community, near Yosemite National Park.
I’ve always had “excursions to nature,” so to speak, even when I lived in Illinois. I would escape to my sister’s farm in Iowa or to Door County, Wisconsin. My excursions continued when I moved to California, and from my first visit to Yosemite National Park, I was in love. In love with the trees, the mountains, the waterfalls, the sky, and the clean air tinged with the aroma of land and pine.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a backpacker, and I probably couldn’t do a serious hike longer than two hours. I’m still a city girl and need my hair straightener, GPS and grande non-fat latte. But I’m a nature enthusiast and admirer, and once my daughter went to college I knew I would find my perfect home in the mountains.
My move could not have been possible, though, without the modern conveniences that make up for the fact that I’m more isolated than before. In Los Angeles, if I ran out of ink for my printer, I’d hop in the car and go to Staples. The closest one here is fifty miles away. But I found out quickly, I could depend on the internet for things I can’t get so readily: if I order ink on Staples.com, they deliver the next day. Not so bad.
Twenty years ago, if I wanted to move to the mountains, I would have had to find a job in the mountains. Or wait until retirement age, which many people do. Now that I’m an internet developer, I can conduct my business from anywhere. Moving to a different location has no bearing on my job or income whatsoever. I can retain my attorneys, my accountant, my employees — all remotely. It’s amazing, actually.
Yes, there is a big adjustment moving to any new community. You have to find ways to find new friends, get used to the new stores, eating places or if you’re like me, try your hand at cooking instead of relying on take-out. But when I look out the window and see a meadow instead of a traffic jam and hear birds chirping instead of frustrated car horns, I know I’ve made the right decision.
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