Hmm... An Interesting Concept.

The good people over at Studio30 Plus have come up with an interesting idea. Every week they provide a writing prompt. As they put it, it's "a key word or phrase or feeling that you may use to inspire a blog post". Members interested in participating can do so voluntarily. If you're a member you're free to take part. Over thirty, yet not a member? What are you waiting on? Anyway, we'll deal with your commitment issues later. As for now, I've decided to throw my two cents in:

This Week's prompt is just one word: CONCRETE.

I see it every day. During my trek from home, to work, to school and back home again (rinse, repeat the next day), concrete surrounds me. My wife and I often joke about leaving the urban life behind and moving to a cleaner, safer, quieter life in the country. It has become somewhat of a running gag between us with neither really willing to commit to the idea. We both grew up in built up areas. Truth is, we'd miss it, I suppose. As much as we get tired of the exhaust fumes and the noise and the stifling congestion of building looming overhead, it's what we know.

Still, I wonder if we really could...

The highway that connects the busy, bustling northern part of Trinidad known as the East/West Corridor to the just as built up central and southern cities passes along mostly empty undeveloped swampland. On the rare occasions I have to travel to the southern part of the country, I find myself staring off at the vast expanses of land that sprawl off to either side of that highway. Buildings are few and far between for the most part. In some areas, the only evidence of man's incursion in these swampy flatlands are the spread out rows of massive electrical towers trailing off toward the horizon.

So much open space...

When I stare off at into it, I let my mind stray. More than a few times I ask myself, if I were dropped in the middle of it, too far from any road or any buildings to see them, could I find my way back? Silly! Of course I could. It is a small island after all. As long as I didn't go in circles, my biggest fear would be a cayman or some other wild swampland creature chomping my ass off.

I'd survive. I think...

We'd miss the concrete. We'd miss the cable TV and the coffee shops with free wi-fi. We'd long for the nine-to-five routine and the prepackaged, mass-produced life we despise so much for making us lazy and unhealthy and so stressed out all the time. This life in this concrete jungle is our life. We'd be ready to pack our things and move back to our old life within a week. I know it. We would miss our concrete lives.

But, eventually, that would pass.

Wouldn't it?