Conflicted

Today the rain poured; poured so hard it poured up from the concrete surfaces. Poured so hard the earth could not hold it.

Tonight I walked home, a half-mile in the chilly, new-spring air. I wished the walk were longer; I wished I had a place to sit and watch the nearly-stormy weather rolling in and feel the hearkening wind signaling me to go indoors.

Tonight I walked around puddles, and skipped over mud, breathing deeply of the refreshed air. And terribly conflicted.

On nights like this one, I hate living in the city. I hate not having a front porch and being where staying outside on a stormy spring night is not a practical possibility. I miss green that is not hemmed in by stark fences or relegated to common parks.

But I love this place with its complexity of smell and sound, and its ever-changing scenery. The movement is both energizing and dizzying. I love the life that the rain breathes back into the dead grayness; I love the rebounding rain pelting up from the city streets.

How can I both love and hate this place so deeply? How can I be desperate to get out, back to the openness of the country, but afraid that where I will go will not be as alive as this place that I often feel is so dead? Can my trees be both concrete and elms, my fields both asphalt and wheat?