Country Meets City.

What a week. It was exhausting (but good) due to lots of unpacking, sorting, and organizing. I moved to a new apartment, with a new roommate, in a new neighborhood this week. She and I have spent many hours getting settled in, arranging living room furniture, hanging pictures and paintings, re-arranging the living room furniture, washing dishes...and re-re-arranging the living room furniture, just one more time.

Contrasting all the new-ness is our old, old apartment in an old, old 4plex. We've got crooked doorways and creeky floors and radiator heat. My key sticks in the lock. The pipes make noises I haven't heard since I was a kid, growing up in our old peach and white house on the farm.

These things are oddly comforting. It's here that I see country meeting the city- and I think I'm going to like it. The longer I live in Minneapolis, the more I realize I really enjoy the city. And as that feeling grows, so does my love for country living.

It's the weirdest thing, feeling at home in both the country and city, two places at once. There are so many opportunities that exist in a big city. One of my favorite things has been experiencing other cultures through the friends I've made.

A big factor in this has been my church. Today we had another multi-cultural potluck, with Korean bulgogi, Cameroonian fried plantains, black beans and rice, African fry bread, Chicken Wings and German Potato Salad - to name just a few! My church is made up of people who grew up all over the world, who bring new perspectives to life and faith. Totally different from the hotdish and jello salads of rural church potlucks.

Yet...there's something about those rural potlucks that I love. Thick black coffee. Homemade dinner rolls, homemade pies, homemade everything.

Then there are the simple errands to the hardware store or checking fence line. Roaming gravel roads in a dust-covered truck. Taking in a sunset on a horizon of nothing but grass.

I can't get away from the country, even here in the city. I am cleaning up some old shed windows to hang in my bedroom. My duvet cover looks like it came from living room wallpaper in an old farm house. I've got a canvas photo of my dad's old orange chevy truck, and mason jars on almost every single bookcase in the apartment. I love these things. They feel like a piece of me, sitting on a shelf for everyone to see, a glimpse into country life.

These items are as much a part of me as my skinny jeans, road bike, and my affinity of Starbucks. It's a weird combo, country-meets-city, but I am learning to embrace it and enjoy it.