Outliers

Tight-Knit Living in Outer Suburbia

Suburbanites who read my last post shaming suburbanites may have blanched. The suburbanite, I averred, is a neatnik inclined to separate functions that ought to mingle. The spatial consequence is what we call sprawl. To meet life’s needs, suburbanites, hence, must spend one to two hours a day in a car: work is tidily slotted in one location; school in another; physical exercise in another; nature in another; and sleeping quarters in yet another. The experiential jumble that ensues, however, is messy: both inconvenient and mentally dissociative, it summons the additional need for antidepressants, now more ubiquitous than cold remedies. The suburban landscape, viewed aerially—with its starkly delineated commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational zones—has the look of a dissected animal whose innards are splayed out across a laboratory table, each excised function clearly labeled.

I prefer my organisms whole and intact, which is one reason I balked at applying to medical school, but also why I live in the heart of the organism known as a city.

But I might be too sweeping in my dismissal of suburbia and its denizens. The mentality that gives rise to it may not be the mentality of a given suburbanite. On the contrary, those who reside in suburbia (possibly for valid reasons) may well resist or rebel against its main tendencies. I stumbled onto a family that does just that.

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The California gold rush didn’t end in 1849. For all practical purposes, it went on another 150 years as further waves of settlers stampeded toward what seemed the last frontier, finally saturating its coastal region and driving prices into the stratosphere. Now American settlement is retrenching. It has splashed backwards to a mid-continental quasi-coastline—a hundreds-mile-long scenic stretch that overlooks not white-capped ocean but snow-capped mountain.

Behold the central Colorado corridor. Suburbanization is undergoing its last epic gasp: once again virgin frontier gives way to freeways, subdivisions, smog, ubiquitous background noise—and lifestyles that are unsustainable, both environmentally and economically.

When I drove down this corridor in my rental car, I almost laughed out loud. So many Americans are escaping to the edge of the Rockies that what they are trying to outrace, like a giant tidal wave, is crashing down around them. The collective result is a new, inescapable landscape—an “escape-scape.” When so many people foment such an epochal change—like it or not, wise or not—the result constitutes its own reality and must be faced. If the world gives you exurban lemmings, make lemming-aid. It was this possibility that I came to investigate.

Can the Escape-Scape itself be escaped?

On my way from the Denver airport, I thought surely not. The route was complicated and required shifting from freeway to freeway in often bumper-to-bumper traffic for over an hour. Exiting the Interstate at last, I found myself on a two-lane highway that flung me past one subdivision, then another, then past an immense strip mall lined with big boxes. Gradually, development thinned and I entered the outermost zone of the suburban fringe, a less-thickly settled area known as Black Forest.

Set back in the woods about fifty feet, I spied my quarry. From where I was, it looked edible: chocolate brown with glistening green and red trim like frosting—a custom-built log cabin. It could have been the witch’s cottage in “Hansel and Gretel.” I pulled up the drive. Merry voices could be heard. In the dimming light, two or three little ones were jumping around a larger figure on the front porch. He would be Patrick, my host for the evening—too busy with his brood to notice me. The children—three of them, age eight and younger, two girls and a boy—were light-haired and bouncy. Patrick was dark, slightly stocky, medium height. After pulling to a stop, I creaked out of the car, hobbled over on my travel-stiffened legs, and introduced myself.

He reached over with a friendly smile and shook my hand. Before he could say a word, the kids went wild, yelling and crowding around me and chattering all at once. Patrick mouthed his hello and relented as the welcoming committee ushered me through the front door. Neither Patrick nor I had any choice in the matter. I could only imagine that my jubilant greeters had just killed the wicked witch and couldn’t wait to show off their booty. The great hall had a two-story ceiling, a steep ladder-like stairway running to the loft, and a massive stone fireplace. Now swept into the kids’ bedroom, I beheld a spectacular, cantilevered bunk bed upon which the boy—about four—climbed up to his uppermost berth and triumphantly beat his chest.

“Wow,” I said. “Your bed is a jungle gym!”

He nodded eagerly. Back on the floor, he led me next to the “bug catcher”—a box that trapped flies.

“You should be in there,” I quipped. “You’re about the size of a big bug.”

He giggled. Then he asked if he could do his “batman scream.”

“What?”

I shouldn’t have asked. I covered my ears too late. I still don’t know if I’ve fully recovered my hearing.

Finally moving to the kitchen and sitting at the table—now joined by Patrick’s wife Katie, a lighter-haired, calm and genial woman who was the obvious source of her children’s hair color—I asked, mock-seriously:

“Why are your children so glum? They’re obviously having a terrible time walled up in this remote cabin.”

Katie nodded soberly. “They obviously don’t like visitors.”

“Ever since Covid,” Patrick explained, “They haven’t done a lot of socializing. It’s given them a lot of pent-up energy.” (When I visited the Shechets, the pandemic still hadn’t ended). He banished the kids to the living room and hooked them up to a Disney cartoon movie, which, he apologized, he normally wouldn’t allow on a weekday. Silicon-conjured sorcery has its uses.

Idea #1. Make sure small children have a gymnastic outlet: a swing-set, a backyard tree, a tire swing, or a giant “jungle gym” bed in their bedroom that encourages physical activity and imaginative play. Only when no other alternative avails, drug them with Disney.

The self-avowed family chef, Patrick served supper as we conversed. After a few bites of his scrumptious cilantro-seasoned chili, it dawned on me that my hosts might well have pulled off the coup I thought couldn’t happen: to outmaneuver the real-life Wicked Witch. The more I learned, the more I was willing to believe in ways to live in the “escape-scape” that are wholesome, ecological, and developmentally healthy.

But Patrick and Katie (unlike the fairy tale protagonists) knew what they were getting themselves into. They themselves had grown up in an Escape-Scape—a sparsely populated region of southern California (Katie in the furthest outreaches of L. A. and Patrick in the hinterlands of San Diego County)—so they knew all about Life in Outer Space. I felt a pang as I mentally compared my own years of early marriage, flailing and floundering from one place to another with no idea what was ahead.

But an anchoring theme of their collegiate studies lay in the background. As students of philosophy at Thomas Aquinas College near Ventura, California, they had taken in Aristotle at a formative time of their intellectual development and emulated him in their adherence to common sense, balance, and meticulousness.

If so, it was time to mention the elephant in the room. Why had they uprooted themselves from California and followed the reverse land-rush to Colorado? Was this not rather “extremist?”

Katie said something by way of reply that threw me, and I thought I misheard her. Then she repeated herself:

“Sometimes, to bring life in balance, you’ve got to bend the stick the other way.” I heard the words clearly this time, but I still didn’t get it.

Patrick rephrased: “When things get extreme, you need to overcompensate the other direction.”

“Did Aristotle actually use that phrase?”

“No, probably not. But it has come to be associated with his ideas.”

They filled in more details. In San Diego, they led typical commuter lives, each traveling ninety minutes round trip to work. (“I absolutely hate commuting!” Patrick interjected.) Colorado offered if not greener pastures, shadier bowers. Katie’s dad already lived near them now in Black Forest. Patrick’s company allowed remote work. Many of his colleagues were already in Colorado. It all added up.

It wasn’t about uprooting. It was about continuity, long-term equilibrium.

When they first arrived, however, they admitted they did go to an extreme. They ditched their cars and bought a house near the center of Colorado Springs, hoofing it or taking public transit and Uber. But they lived only a block from a hospital blaring sirens at all hours. A nearby baseball stadium launched fireworks after every game. And the family next door let their four-year-old daughter watch adult videos, with marijuana smoke billowing from the front door.

Their daughter was the same age and eager for a playmate. What were they supposed to tell her?

One day they were casually glancing through real estate ads and noticed a storybook house for sale.

But if they went for it, the trip back to Colorado Springs was as onerous as the one they had come to Colorado to escape from. Then came another “aha” moment:

What if buying the cabin could be an opportunity to avoid driving?

What if they limited their automobile usage to one trip per week?

That would involve a fancy trick: combining all conceivable errands and visits into one wild, weekly jaunt. Church, shopping, recreation, all crammed into a single, looping expedition with several small kids in tow. Since church was on the list, that narrowed down the day to Sunday. Both Patrick and Katie are Catholic and have held special ministry positions at their church in Colorado Springs. So, somehow their hectic weekly trip would culminate in Sunday Mass.

“Doesn’t this desecrate the Sabbath?” I asked.

“A little,” said Patrick with a self-deprecating nod. “But we’ve found that we actually find shopping at Costco after church a bit celebratory, because we’re shopping for the Sunday meal we’ll have later.”

It sounded like a rationalization. But I understood the need. In the end, they opted for consecrating Costco to the god of seclusion and serenity. It was a compromise for which the Church, no doubt, would grant dispensation. So, they shelled out $410,000 for a 4.5 acre tract—cheap by California standards though expensive-sounding to me as a St. Louisan. Meeting the mortgage payments, even so, took the lion’s share of Patrick’s sweat equity in his eight-hour-a-day software development job.

But here, at about the furthest point from the basic amenities of greater Colorado Springs, they put in only about 60 miles driving a week. That’s about one fifth the mileage of the typical American.

They had their Black Forest Cake and ate it too.

Limiting travel time to one (or sometimes two) weekly trips was the secret. It saved gasoline, wear and tear on the vehicle, money and, best of all—time for cultivating the human garden.

Idea #2: If you are far away from it all, limit time in the car, if possible, to one day on the weekend. Even eliminating twenty minutes a day will save two and a half hours a week for cultivating a better life.

Social Balance

This thinly settled region east of Colorado Springs is hard to classify. Is it country, suburb, or something in between? It is a twilight realm. A farmer across the road raised the cow they slaughtered for their meat supply, but city trash pickup happens weekly. And while they themselves can raise farm animals, the number is regulated by the local zoning board. (As of now, they had only a cat, but they were contemplating adding pigs, rabbits, goats and/or ducks.)

And yet, although they appeared isolated, the community is surprisingly—to use Katie’s word—“rich.” It includes the farmer with the cow across the road. It features a pig farmer not far away who holds interesting events to educate novice herders like themselves. There is also a circle of homeschooling families with kids of all ages for weekly get-togethers (my visit happened during Covid, but restrictions would eventually relax). Katie’s parents are close as well; her mother watches the kids two mornings a week while Katie works on her master’s, and her dad collaborates with Patrick on car repairs and firewood cutting.

The Shechets also take part in a lively online community: a circle of aspiring writers like themselves who’d formed a support group. Katie and Patrick together devote a month or so every year to co-writing a fantasy novel. Patrick is so dedicated to the craft that he is developing a new online tool, “Auctor” for writers seeking an alternative to Facebook for remote collaboration.

And Patrick still talks on the phone every day to his best friend from the first grade, who now lives in Irvine, California.

As for the community on the ground, Katie plans to rejoin the weekly homeschool gathering after Covid restrictions ease. That, admittedly, means an additional car trip, 22 minutes each way. But it seems worth it: a chance for face-to-face socializing for both their children and Mom, who can hobnob with other homeschool moms. Compared to others on these country roads, even so, they still would drive far less.

Balancing the Familiar and the New

In a growth medium they were still enriching, Katie was in charge of cerebral growth. Patrick was in charge of practical and material growth. She homeschooled the children. He worked his software development job and, when the shift was done, set aside an hour for hands-on activities with the kids before supper, which they also could help him prepare. Weekends, there were myriad home improvement projects that the children observed and sometimes assisted in. Among them, one was already completed: what had been an upstairs loft was now an enclosed room, which doubled as office and bedroom. Plying skills picked up as a construction worker in his teens, Patrick built a wall to create a sound buffer.

In so doing, Patrick fell back on former life experiences: software and carpentry. His main job not only brought in necessary income, it also affirmed him in his skill sets. On this visit I detected no whiff of the frustration, the sense of being out of sorts, that I and my wife myself suffered as we learned on the job. Katie, with her rigorous liberal arts background at Thomas Aquinas, again was in her element as a homeschool mom. Even in middle of the “escape-scape,” she seemed rooted.

We ate and talked until about 8 pm. I did most of the eating. They did most of the talking. I couldn’t stop shoveling Patrick’s cilantro-chili into my gullet. I’d never really enjoyed chili before. (Patrick doesn’t use recipes but his “cooking algorithm” will be supplied. Oh, did I not mention that he once worked in a professional kitchen?) The cabin was too small to host an overnight guest comfortably, so I left and checked into a nearby B&B.

The drive away was different from the drive in. I was in no rush and sat relishing the Shechets’ accomplishment. How heartwarming to eat a home-cooked meal in a homey log cabin overflowing with homey feeling. But why did I feel so “at home?” Where did this inner warmth come from? The secret to the Shechets’ success, clearly, was that, while venturing to the edge of settled territory, they hadn’t strayed too far from the familiar. They’d traveled halfway across the country to find their true home. The word “familiar” means “like family.”

Patrick and Katie had been a couple since college, and they shared similar educational levels and worldviews. This familiarity, still, went beyond words, and what they exuded went beyond fondness. They were two halves of a whole. I couldn’t help exclaiming, “You seem very compatible!”

On cue they chorused back, “We’re super-compatible!”

[This story will continue with the next post].