In keeping with the West Virginia homesick theme, I have to mention the other night. I was talking on the phone with my friend Tyler, who’s currently in New York, and as we were talking I was enjoying the cool night air. Back home I wouldn’t be outside at night this time of year without a heavy jacket, and probably a scarf and a hat, but only a light sweatshirt is needed so far in Tennessee.
Anyway, as Tyler and I were talking, I walked around the corner of the house and saw an opossum….in Memphis…in Tennessee.
Cute, in a scary stay-over-there kinda way.
Doesn’t seem too shocking, does it? In West Virginia, wild animals are all over the place. Our state is stereotyped for eating roadkill, of all kinds; we even have a roadkill festival.
For me, this sighting marked two things. 1) It was my first live wild animal sighting in Tennessee. (I did see a dead raccoon within a couple of weeks here.) 2) If opossums live here, then maybe there are more wild animals (not counting that one raccoon, he could’ve been a fluke). If there are more wild animals, they have to live somewhere, right? If they have to live somewhere, there must be wild green space, right?
So really, I’m just excited about the prospect of forest, or uncultivated green-ness.
I make it sound like I’ve never been to a city before Memphis. I have been to plenty of other cities. I lived in Morgantown last year and I thought that was a city…I never expected to be this confused living in a city though. I expected to panic about driving, and get lost all the time. I even expected Mom to tell me about all the crimes that happened here in the last year and a half. I just didn’t expect the city to be so grey.
And I’ve yet to see a deer.
lifeisjustduckie 