and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

Bottom line is that no one asks me for anything. Didn't I tell you I live a charmed life? My friends all find their own ways to the bus station or from the airport. They all get help moving from someone else. No one bothers me.

At first glance I suppose that looks a lot like a charmed life. Little to worry about, no reason to get out of bed on Saturdays before noon, and no unexpected calls to bail someone out of jail at 2 in the morning. But really, it's a bore. Self-sufficiency makes for less community..

Here in Maine, if you live in one of the larger burgs you might find that your neighbours are passing apparitions whom you barely recognize. You might see the world out of a tiny keyhole the size of a single eye. You might not know your local selectman. But if you move yourself out into the willy-wacks where the closest grocery store is a 20 minute drive away and the laundromat is the post office is the convience store - well, you might find yourself relying on a few more folks than you did before. Rural Maine doesn't have amenities such as 24-hour towing services and all night diners. Rural Maine isn't a quick stroll to the drugstore. Rural Maine isn't even on the map, sometimes.

My personal experience in life involves one tiny town (pop 400), one small town (pop 6500), two small cities (pop 40,000 & pop 65,000) and one large metropolis (pop 3.5 million). Somehow, the extremes are where I have found real community. Growing up as a youngster in a town of 400 people you just knew everyone. Maybe not because you wanted to, but just because it's pretty hard not to memorize 400 faces. It's like going to a high school with 100 kids a class. Maybe you don't speak with every one of them but you certainly know who they are - know their names - know where they live, most likely.

Likewise, living in a large city of 3.5 million there was a tendancy to find your niche. You'd visit the same stores for groceries and the same restuarants for lunch. You'd frequent the same holes-in-the-wall for beer and you'd walk the same route to work every day. In a city you're on your feet more. You're in the trenches. Parking is a bitch so you use public transit more. Traffic is a bitch so you walk more. You're moving at such a slower pace that you see more and recognize more.

It's far too easy, in a small city, to box yourself away into a cage (car) and ignore the world around you. You can drive everywhere since parking isn't a premium and that means you go to the megasupergrocery store where it might take you three or four visits before you see the same cashier again. There are enough people that you aren't forced to see the same ones every day like you are in a tiny town. Everything moves by you in a blur as you move by them in a blur and before you know it ten years have gone by and you don't know a soul around you.

Various Top Ten lists will tell you that Portland, ME and other mid-to-small-sized cities are the best places to live in America. However, as per my discussion above you can see that I personally am not so sure. Maybe I'm an introvert. What do I know?