Notes from a "middle of nowhere" apologist

I mean, it's better than the outskirts of nowhere

Long time no see! The Substack has been quiet lately because I’ve been busy eeking out chapters of a novel (some of which may make it onto the Substack, I’m not sure yet). In the meantime, here is a regular Substack installment along with a brief bit of news, which is that an essay of mine came out today in Orion, the nature magazine! It’s about bones and horses and miners and little me: Orion article

Eight Belles, the main focus of my Orion article

Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking about the sorts of places I’d like to live in the future and small towns and specifically the phrase “the middle of nowhere.” First of all, I have to admit it’s a useful phrase even if it smacks of condescension. It’s useful because it’s a broad way of indicating “I don’t know exactly where this place is, or if I do, I don’t think that you would have any reference for a geographical description of it. Suffice it to say that there isn’t a major town or city near it.” It’s the middle of nowhere—you get the picture.

But truthfully, isn’t it better to live in the middle of nowhere than on the outskirts of nowhere? The outskirts of nowhere sound kind of bleak. I sometimes joke that I live in the middle of everything because Huntington is right on the Ohio and Kentucky borders—three states in one. I go to the doctor in Ohio, kayak in Kentucky, and hike in West Virginia. I can eat buckeye bars and drink bourbon under the watchful eye of the Mothman statue. What more could a girl want?

Me feeding catfish at the local state park

But really, what more could a girl want? When I think about what I miss from city life and why I might move back to a city in the future, the following things come to mind: an aquarium, more dating options, more places to eat, a more robust variety of religious/spiritual options, and more theatre. There are also things I don’t miss, but I don’t think I’ll get into that here.

When I think about it in more depth, though, some of my longings don’t stand up to scrutiny. I want…an aquarium? I don’t actually want an aquarium – if I wanted an aquarium I could drive 2 hours and 45 minutes to Cincinnati. Not ideal, but I’ve done a day trip there before. When I lived in Chicago, over the course of four years I think I visited the Shedd 2 or 3 times, so not even annually. It’s kinda pricey! What I actually want is the existence of an aquarium in my vicinity; I want to know that I could go, but mostly I would not go. More dating options is a legitimate request, though that doesn’t make it better, it just makes it more. I want to believe that love is just around the corner in a city, because more people. I don’t know if this is true. Sex and the City told me I would have a boyfriend every week; why would they lie to me on television?Is it really statistically more likely that my soulmate is in Cincinnati? Is the feeling that my soulmate could be in Cincinnati actually what I’m looking for? How long would that feeling sustain me?

This is just an excuse to show you the beautiful synagogue down the street from me

“More places to eat” is sort of a ridiculous request when, like the aquarium, I don’t go out to eat that much, and I haven’t come close to exhausting what’s around me. More vegetarian and less fried options would be good, but I haven’t even tried all the veggie options in my small city. Let’s get more theatre out of the way: I haven’t been to a single theatre performance. I am just scared they will be bad because they don’t involve über-professional actors. I don’t even really watch plays in general; I only go when my friends invite me. And the problem with the religious/spiritual options is that the progressive groups are smaller. And it feels bad to be part of a group of 4 people trying to earnestly summon the presence of God—it smacks of clownery, even though it's a very noble (arguably the most noble) way to grow something beautiful.

What I’m getting at is: to a large extent, to me a city represents the availability, the abundance of things that I might not actually partake in but which I want to know are there. It makes me feel good inside to be filled with the general presence of things which constitute experiences. The more of the right kind of cultured experiences I have, the more I am living. The best way to live is to absolutely stuff your life with things and experiences! But not low-brow experiences like going to Billy Bob’s Wonderland, a local Huntington attraction where the most upsetting animatronic bear to ever walk the earth plays a ukelele made of bark. That doesn’t count as life enough, I guess. Carrie Bradshaw wouldn’t be caught dead earnestly enjoying Billy Bob’s.

Yeah, whatever you thought he would look like, it’s worse. Ta-dah!

But the truth is, my 20s have not been like Sex and the City so far. The most enjoyable moments have been much more like Billy Bob’s Wonderland, where there is singing and laughter and cheap greasy food and maybe also you get a little frightened, but in an ultimately funny way. I try to less and less watch myself from outside my body, judging whether or not I am having a chic enough time or wasting my youth or what have you. I just want to be breathing air, and I’ll take whatever experiences come my way, as long as they’re enjoyable. It’s not really possible to waste time; it’s already happening. You can’t gather time up in your hands like kitchen scraps. Move over, Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart Tolle, by the way, would tell you to visit Billy Bob’s Wonderland.