For half the year I’d like to live in a rambling, two-story country house, built smack-dab in the middle of a hundred acres that belongs solely to me. I would know that I could get up early in the morning, and watch the sun rise, and take a long hike, and meet nobody. I could walk far enough away from my country house that I couldn’t see it any longer, only trees and sky and waving grass. I could go out at night, and lay on my stomach on a hill, and watch the stars and the big yellow moon—the moon that always looks bigger in the country.

The other half-year, I’d like to live in a big city, possibly New York City, in a very modern apartment. I could walk down busy streets and admire the skyline, and window-shop. I could eat at smart little cafes, and stop at a bagel shop for lunch. I could be surrounded by thousands of pleasant, grumpy, smiling, sad, busy, brisk, disinterested people. I could sit on my balcony at night, near the potted geraniums on my window sill, and listen to the night-noises of the city.

Instead I live in a four-bedroom, one-story house in what is really a very nice suburb, with lots of big trees, no fences, and pleasant neighbors. If I time it right, I can sit in my half-acre backyard, and none of the neighbor children will come over and interrupt me. I can bike down well-kept streets (down Ingleside, turn right on Mulberry, pass two streets, and make another right, and then another, back to Ingleside), and there will be just enough people to be too many when I want to be alone, and not enough for when I want the companionship of a crowd of strangers.

But it is, after all, a nice house, and a nice neighborhood, and the neighbor kids don’t come around too often, and—I guess people will always want just a little more than they have. Just because.