I'm a Little More Country than That

I love country music. Most people I meet don't see me as a country-lover they usually guess some version of pop - my tendency to have a sugary sweet disposition might have something to do with that assumption.

But to me country music feels like home. I often say that it's music you can feel, I mean REALLY feel. there's so much emotion packed into every song and even the silly ones are just so feel good that they fill you with an emotion all the same.

They make me yearn for small town life and strong community and family values.

I was in Chapters this afternoon (side note: having the day off is great....less fun when no one else does though) and i stumbled across a Melissa Gilbert biography. For those who don't know Melissa Gilbert played Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.

I must have seen every episode of that show multiple times. Not every episode was my favorite - generally if it circled around another family in the town and there was little to no interaction with the Ingalls than I wasn't all that interested - and there were some that scared the bejeezus out of me (remember the one where the black smith rapes Albert's girlfriend wearing that white mask?) and ones that broke my heart (Mary going blind, the blind school burning down, the final episode when they blew up the town).

I was also enamored by the writing of LM Montgomery and tales in Road to Avonlea as well as her world-renowned Anne of Green Gables series (my personal favorite).

I think it's the extreme strength that all of these families possess which draws me towards them even today. Even though the Ingalls family faced the gamut of hardships over the course of the show's run, the overarching theme that with family you will make it through never wavered. I'm attracted to this idyllic view of families, mostly because i dont' think that it has to be merely an idyllic fantasy. These families all have their problems and they don't always agree but they always come back to one another.

Much of that comes down to tradition I think and I know I have expressed a lacking in family tradition within my genetic pool before, but it's a recurring concern of mine that I want to make sure I change when I finally have a family of my own. I want my own Little House in Vancouver to have that much love, to live in a community like Avonlea where every person matters and to create a family where maybe there wasn't one before just like Anne.

And so I listen to country music and grasp at the country roots that will be....