We tried to sell our home this year. We wanted to downsize our space, in keeping with simplicity. And we wanted to downsize our mortgage, in keeping with reality. But no matter how much equity we were willing to sacrifice, our low-ball asking price attracted no buyers. After dozens of showings the primary complaint we heard over and over (and over and over) again was: “We love the house, but the power lines behind the back fence will ruin our view.”

Some people don’t like power lines. I get it. Of course, the power lines absolutely ensure that no other homes will be built behind ours. It’s just open field. Well, not quite open. It is filled with coastal sage and rabbits and quail and snakes and coyotes. In the daytime red tailed hawks perch on the huge iron towers that hold up the power lines, scanning the field for prey. At night owls keep us awake hooting so loudly it sounds like they are sitting in the ornamental olive tree crammed into our tiny backyard. Perhaps they are.

Last week Leanne and I were in Nashville for Hutchmoot. It is not easy to explain the gathering, so I am not going to even try. Yet I will mention that Wendell Berry’s name came up a lot.

It sounds too fancy for me to say that Wendell Berry is a literary mentor of mine, though I consider him to be. The first book of his I owned was a collection of his Sabbath poems that I purchased when I was still in high school. For over twenty years I have been reading Wendell Berry. His poetry, essays, and fiction. That sounds more impressive than it is. I have never memorized long passages of his works, like some friends of mine. I have gone long stints without reading his poems, unlike some friends of mine. I have only read Jayber Crow twice and, though I still marvel at it, have come to think that Jayber and Mattie were both more than a touch dysfunctional. For some, I am no doubt a Wendell Berry heretic.

I might as well go all the way then. Reading Wendell Berry for two decades has given me the impression that it is not possible to find home cooking in the suburbs. Suburbanites don’t faithfully make love; they have affairs or wished they did. Suburbanites only leave their homes by backing their SUVs out of their garages so that they don’t risk having to talk with their neighbors. They leave their TVs running for their pets.

It is all true. The suburbs are filled with people living in sin and driving in gas-guzzlers and microwaving frozen foods. It’s just that there are people like that living in Port William, too.

I believe it is not Wendell Berry’s intention to create this impression, though I think he sometimes does. He sometimes gives you the sense that you will find a more honest and natural kind of person, if you will only abandon the suburbs and become an agrarian. Perhaps you will. Actually, I’m sure you will. But in doing so you will become the very kind of person Wendell Berry disdains the most. The kind of person who abandons community in search of something better.

“If enough of us were to choose caring over not caring, staying over going, then the culture would change, the theme of exploitation would become subordinate to the theme of settlement, and the choice to be a sticker would become easier. The necessary examples would be more numerous and more available. The way would be clearer.” (Another Turn of the Crank)

Over the last week I have been working on my post-Hutchmoot reflection. It has been coming together as a song. It’s still rough and always will be since I’m not a songwriter. There is still work to be done on it. And my suburban life.