But Does it Come in Beige?

Alrighty Alrighty.  We landed in Utah County and it is everything you might imagine it would be, had you ever spent any time around Provo.  There are a lot of positives.  You might expect the people to be weirdo Utah Mormons (the type who shower with their g’s on and shake their heads at any non-standard appearance or behavior) but in reality they are just too nice to dislike in any way.  Good people in Utah County.  They’re friendly, welcoming and helpful.  I like that they all have more than two children, lack any pretentiousness, and they are usually busy with their family who likely live in the same town.  The lifestyle makes sense.

And it’s the easy life.  Parking as far as the eye can see.  Every single chain restaurant your heart could desire.  Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Target AND Wal-Mart, all within a few blocks of one another.  The biggest (seriously, outrageously big) Smith’s grocery you ever did see.  I can’t even go there because it’s too big to walk through.  Maybe with a Lark. 

One of the infinite trendy chain joints, this one I happen to love.  Swig makes soft drink mixes for like a buck.  It’s the Shave Ice of this year.

It’s a ten minute commute for Hush, which is what brought us to this area.  The school is relatively close and highly ranked.  We haven’t found a preschool yet.

The movers. 

There is nothing wrong with this area.

But it just doesn’t feel right.

It was Hush the other day who really nailed why both of us have felt so antsy in the last 10 days.  It’s the sterility and the floor plan.

First: Floor plan. 

The way this house is designed the heart of the home is the TV.  The bedrooms are on one end, all three together like we almost all share one room.  The far side is the kitchen, next to the laundry (basically my office.)  And between the two ends is the living room where we currently have our TV set up.  We’ve never had cable before, but I decided that since I didn’t know anybody and I was going to have a tiny baby cooping me up all the time, I might as well take the plunge and get cable.  It is absolutely worthless.  We have thousands of channels and the whole thing is just beyond me to the point of being annoying. 

In our previous house the TV (Netflix and Hulu) was downstairs.  Hush and I spent most of our evenings in the kitchen and in the front room where all of the instruments were, or outside on the hammock or on the front porch.  The TV was an afterthought.  It was never on.  And the product of that sort of face-to-face interaction was musical creations and sync dancing and mirror motion conversations and all kinds of other weirdness that I have recorded on my other computer.  TV prevents love.  Boredom promotes it.

Look at the half-mast TV eyes.  Oh, and when you’re really pregnant it’s good to have your four year old insist upon laying on your tummy.

Perhaps we could move the TV downstairs or turn off the cable.  Maybe just restructuring  will make it feel more like our family house: a creative by default type of environment.

Second: Sterility.

Newer suburban developments are sterile and generally unimaginative.  The yards are unique and people bring their personal décor and style, but I really like neighborhoods with a greater diversity of homes.  I don’t understand why builders make developments in beige.  And how does one go about buying one of these homes?  How do you pick between one beige home or another?  What goes into the selection process?   Now, I know that 95% of America lives in developments not unlike the one we find ourselves in at this time, but I wonder WHY are the developments built in this particular way?  (With the exception of Daybreak, which may be exactly what we want.  It’s impossible not to fall in love with the quaintness of Daybreak.)

I drive around this area with this song running through my head:

“Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds, 1962

http://youtu.be/2_2lGkEU4Xs

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,¹
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Now if there WAS a pink one, I’d be in like flynn.  But they are ALL BEIGE.

And on every corner, more development.

But oh, the models.  I LOVE those. 

So here we are for the time being.  Good people, good schools, an overall environment where we could get sucked into TV and beige and become totally okay with that.  Perhaps we will stay forever, but maybe there are other horizons for us.

Maybe my little house box will be number 67,

Or maybe our little box will be the second storey in the gray building with the red shutters.

There’s just so much world out there.  Wherever my family is we will have to figure out how to retain our color and our eccentric hobby nights at home.