Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Beth, and this is social Leopards. Making a
Speaker 1: big move geographically can be life changing. And today's story
Speaker 1: is about a man who moved along with his family
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts to Oregon and how that impacts the way
Speaker 1: he now views life in general. As someone who moved
Speaker 1: around a lot when I was growing up, it struck
Speaker 1: a chord and I hope you enjoy the way this
Speaker 1: story unfolds. When I started this season of reflections, the
Speaker 1: first story I shared was about Stephanie Clebbins, who went
Speaker 1: through a lot as she decided to shift her career
Speaker 1: life around to find better balance. This story is also
Speaker 1: about finding better balance, and it's written by substat dot
Speaker 1: com creator skipk and Cannon, and he actually has several
Speaker 1: articles about how this big cross country move impacted his family,
Speaker 1: his cultural views, and his community. And with that, I'll
Speaker 1: begin reading what you hear when the noise stops. How
Speaker 1: moving from Boston to rural Oregon forced me to confront
Speaker 1: who I really was beneath all the noise. I'm standing
Speaker 1: in the driveway holding a chainsaw, trying not to look
Speaker 1: like I'm about to lose a limb. Kevin, my friend
Speaker 1: who comes from generations of loggers is explaining something about
Speaker 1: kickback and the saw break. While I not an agreement,
Speaker 1: the truth is six months ago, I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: the difference between a still and a steelhead. Now Here,
Speaker 1: I am preparing to cut firewood because I live in
Speaker 1: a house heated by a wood stove, and winter is coming.
Speaker 1: Winter is always coming. It was a ninety degree day
Speaker 1: in June. But the hardest part about moving from Boston
Speaker 1: to rural Oregon isn't learning to use new tools or
Speaker 1: being snowbound after winter storms. It's the quiet and what
Speaker 1: you hear when the noise finally stops. When people back
Speaker 1: in Boston heard I was moving to Oregon, they'd not approvingly.
Speaker 1: At Least, you're going to a progressive state, they'd say,
Speaker 1: as if they knew both my politics and my destination.
Speaker 1: They were wrong on both counts. I'm a libertarian, and
Speaker 1: I landed in a part of Oregon that wants to
Speaker 1: secede to Idaho. But the real shock wasn't cultural. It
Speaker 1: was discovering that my entire sense of self worth was
Speaker 1: built on a foundation I didn't even recognize until it crumbled.
Speaker 1: I used to believe my worth was measured in productivity.
Speaker 1: That if I wasn't worried about boosting revenue, managing clients,
Speaker 1: or outworking the competition, I wasn't pulling my weight, not
Speaker 1: just at work, but in life. I ran a business
Speaker 1: I shared with two partners, was co authoring a book,
Speaker 1: and was accustomed to fielding urgent calls that only I
Speaker 1: could answer. I knew exactly where I stood in the
Speaker 1: pecking order, and that clarity was reassuring. There's something soothing
Speaker 1: about being needed all the time, about having your phone
Speaker 1: buzz with decisions only you can make. When COVID decimated
Speaker 1: my wife's business, we decided if there was ever a
Speaker 1: time for change, that time was now. We settled in
Speaker 1: a small town along the Rogue River, about an hour
Speaker 1: north of the California border. I used to fantasize about
Speaker 1: peace and quiet. Then I got it, and I realized
Speaker 1: the noise had been covering up restlessness, self doubt, and
Speaker 1: the uncomfortable realities of aging. In the stillness, I heard
Speaker 1: myself clearly for the first time in years, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't always flattering. That emotional reckoning was the hardest part
Speaker 1: of this transition. Here, nobody cares who I used to be.
Speaker 1: I'm just another dude at the hardware store seeking assistance
Speaker 1: navigating his latest plumbing misadventure. The loss of professional identity
Speaker 1: was more disorienting than I expected. Without the constant validation
Speaker 1: of being needed, I had to confront a heavy question,
Speaker 1: what was my value? If I wasn't useful in that way?
Speaker 1: I wasn't productive in the old sense. But gradually I
Speaker 1: found worth. I realized presence might be a different sort
Speaker 1: of ambition. But in that uncomfortable space, I started to
Speaker 1: see things I'd been too busy to notice before. The
Speaker 1: first thing I noticed when things slowed down was my marriage.
Speaker 1: Out here, there's more room for eye contact. My wife
Speaker 1: and I might fight more now, but we also talk
Speaker 1: and spend more time together. Our marriage grew more settled
Speaker 1: and deeper, like a river, instead of the constant churn
Speaker 1: of a tide pool in Boston. We managed a family
Speaker 1: here were forced to coordinate almost everything. Living rural means
Speaker 1: planning trips off the mountain for shopping and errands. Things
Speaker 1: that used to be quick individual decisions now require discussion.
Speaker 1: You can't just run down the street for milk and
Speaker 1: be back in five minutes. We have to be prepared
Speaker 1: and the same page for needs both routine and extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Having go bags and escape routes in case of wildfire
Speaker 1: tends to forge a symbiotic working relationship. She probably sees
Speaker 1: more of who I am now, and it's not always great,
Speaker 1: but it's honest. The noise that used to fill our
Speaker 1: days had been masking things. Not always bad things, necessarily,
Speaker 1: but real things, the parts of ourselves that only emerge
Speaker 1: when there's space for them. I was afraid she'd be
Speaker 1: isolated and lonely. My wife's gregarious. She has a touch
Speaker 1: of the Blarney, having been raised less than ten miles
Speaker 1: from Blarney Castle, and has always been the social director
Speaker 1: amongst her friends. I worried that losing her large social
Speaker 1: circle would take a toll, but she'd already emigrated from
Speaker 1: Ireland and moved to Maryland before Florida, and eventually to Boston,
Speaker 1: adapting to new places and making friends each time. She
Speaker 1: proved more resilient than I expected, and I should have
Speaker 1: known better. Shame on me for underestimating a tough woman
Speaker 1: who'd built a life from scratch in a new country.
Speaker 1: She misses her friends, but she's made new ones and
Speaker 1: found her rhythm. Community isn't just about proximity, It's about
Speaker 1: shared purpose. Our daughters adapted even faster, probably because they
Speaker 1: didn't carry my assumptions about what places should offer or
Speaker 1: what success should look like. My youngest daughter was painfully shy.
Speaker 1: When we arrived at preschool, she met a girl who
Speaker 1: was a year older and took an immediate liking tour.
Speaker 1: Without that friendship, we might never have gotten my little
Speaker 1: girl brave enough to walk through the school doors. My
Speaker 1: oldest daughter fell in love with her first grade teacher
Speaker 1: and now consistently talks about becoming a teacher herself. Kids
Speaker 1: don't need their environment to validate their existing identity. They
Speaker 1: adapt to whatever makes sense locally. Ballet lessons, Fourth of July, parade, floats,
Speaker 1: daily post office visits. It's all just background music to them.
Speaker 1: Watching them, I realized something about acceptance that I'd been missing.
Speaker 1: They weren't trying to preserve who they used to be.
Speaker 1: They were just becoming who they needed to be. That
Speaker 1: same flexibility, it turns out, runs deeper in this community
Speaker 1: than i'd expected. I see it in the people who've
Speaker 1: become my teachers here. Kevin, who was teaching me the
Speaker 1: art of chainsaw maintenance sans the zen represents something I'd
Speaker 1: rarely encountered in previous circles. His family has been in
Speaker 1: logging for generations. When the timber industry collapsed, they didn't leave.
Speaker 1: They adapted, started tree services, learned new skills while keeping
Speaker 1: the old ones. There exists a willingness to reinvent here
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with credentialism or career advancement.
Speaker 1: His approach to teaching reflects that same practical wisdom. Using
Speaker 1: the saw isn't rocket science, Kevin tells me while I'm
Speaker 1: strngruggling with chain sharpening. But it'll hurt you if you
Speaker 1: don't respect it. The culture shock wasn't about rural versus urban.
Speaker 1: It was about discovering a community organized around different values
Speaker 1: than what I'd known. The Northeast has always focused on
Speaker 1: credentials and polish. Here I learned to appreciate people who
Speaker 1: could actually fix things when they broke. Rural organ didn't
Speaker 1: convert me to some pastoral ideal. It gave me the
Speaker 1: context to recognize something I'd been conditioned to overlook. In
Speaker 1: the calm, I started to understand that humility might be
Speaker 1: more valuable than I thought. Sometimes it takes a new
Speaker 1: place to hear the voice you've been drowning out your
Speaker 1: whole life. The parts of myself that needed space to surface,
Speaker 1: the eagerness to learn, to be helped, to not have
Speaker 1: all the answers were always there, I just couldn't hear
Speaker 1: them over the noise. I drive a ram truck that
Speaker 1: feels less like a costume. Now I can back up
Speaker 1: a trailer without too much cursing or danger of a
Speaker 1: jackknife situation. I saw logs, split wood, sharpened chains, and
Speaker 1: maintain the chainsaw. These aren't grand in great transformations, but
Speaker 1: small recognitions that my identity wasn't as fixed as I thought.
Speaker 1: The mountain views grew on me gradually, not instantaneously or
Speaker 1: in some dramatic revelation. The people are more interesting and
Speaker 1: skilled in ways I love. I've made friends, and though
Speaker 1: I'm not much for night life anymore, it's good to
Speaker 1: know that I have people to call if I need
Speaker 1: help with a busted pipe or want to grab a beer.
Speaker 1: I'm still a city boy. We may not stay here forever.
Speaker 1: I want my daughters to experience more of the world,
Speaker 1: different types of communities. I could have a third act
Speaker 1: left in me yet, but I had to let go
Speaker 1: of the belief that a slower life is a smaller life.
Speaker 1: This isn't a love letter to rural living. It's an
Speaker 1: admission that I discovered parts of myself didn't know were there.
Speaker 1: The mountains didn't change me, they offered me room to
Speaker 1: figure out what mattered. Sometimes the quiet teaches you things
Speaker 1: the noise never could. The end. My first thoughts as
Speaker 1: I read this story were around the quiet truth surrounding
Speaker 1: such a big move, and how Skip shows a sense
Speaker 1: of humility, curiosity, and openness. It's almost as if his
Speaker 1: new surroundings were prompting him to migrade as mindset over time,
Speaker 1: of course, where listening became more important than speaking. I
Speaker 1: love the idea that identity isn't fixed, and that our
Speaker 1: very environment can offer a mirror for possibilities we forgot
Speaker 1: to even imagine. Sometimes the best revelations come out of
Speaker 1: those most ordinary of moments, that sound of a chainsaw,
Speaker 1: the comfort of friends nearby, the steady presence of a
Speaker 1: mountain skyline. I felt a sense of freedom as I
Speaker 1: began to realize that your story doesn't have to match
Speaker 1: everyone else's ideal. The value of A life isn't measured
Speaker 1: by its speed or its accolades, but by the way
Speaker 1: it makes room for growth and connection. I experienced my
Speaker 1: share of community culture changes as I moved around growing up.
Speaker 1: At first, of course, I was too young to really
Speaker 1: identify or recognize the subtle shifts on how life was
Speaker 1: lived as we entered a new community, and I think
Speaker 1: I was very resilient, much like Skip kind of explains
Speaker 1: about his children. I think the first time I really
Speaker 1: understood was this move from Louisville, Kentucky, to Central Illinois.
Speaker 1: I got to school as a fresh faced sixth grader
Speaker 1: among a bunch of snarky, judgmental peers, and they quickly
Speaker 1: did what sixth graders will do. They started to make
Speaker 1: fun of my slight Southern drawl and my propensity to
Speaker 1: use the word y'all, and it was a bit of
Speaker 1: a tough TRENI now, that's very kid oriented in my perspective,
Speaker 1: and you know, just to kind of paint the picture,
Speaker 1: I was also sporting these wire rimmed glasses and really stringy,
Speaker 1: straight blonde hair. Imagine a young female John Lennon look.
Speaker 1: But because I was a kid, I did make adjustments
Speaker 1: and soon found the things about Central Illinois that made
Speaker 1: life more bearable. I found a very small circle of
Speaker 1: friends who weren't judgy. I found ways to integrate into
Speaker 1: the community without totally losing my earlier little identity that
Speaker 1: was still forming and growing. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time listening rather than acting, especially in that first year
Speaker 1: following the move. I know that reflecting back on a
Speaker 1: time when I wasn't sporting a fully formed frontal lobe
Speaker 1: and coping through the lens of a preteen isn't a
Speaker 1: parallel to the story Skip shares about his move. But
Speaker 1: reading stories like this still kind of bring up a
Speaker 1: lot from my past that I can then reflect upon.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I do find a new appreciation for all
Speaker 1: of these abrupt shifts in my childhood, because ultimately they
Speaker 1: did shape the way I migrated into true adulthood. Later
Speaker 1: in life, I made a move to Central Indiana. My
Speaker 1: ex husband had a unique job opportunity there, and to
Speaker 1: keep the story short, my life had sort of imploded.
Speaker 1: I was in California at the time, so it simply
Speaker 1: made sense, almost seemed like a sign that it was
Speaker 1: time to move to make sure the kids we shared
Speaker 1: were in a better situation with both parents co located,
Speaker 1: and though I moved from a mid size city to
Speaker 1: a mid sized city, that West Coast culture and climate
Speaker 1: is vastly different from the Midwest. Lucky for me, I
Speaker 1: had lived in the Midwest before, so it was more
Speaker 1: like a return from once I came kind of story
Speaker 1: in that sense. In retrospect, that was absolutely the best
Speaker 1: move I ever made. I'm grateful for this last move
Speaker 1: because it brought me closer to my mom and my
Speaker 1: kids seemed to really be throw in Indiana, and ultimately
Speaker 1: I had the good fortune to meet a great guy,
Speaker 1: which I guess did require one smaller move sixty miles
Speaker 1: northwest after we married. That was five years into the relationship,
Speaker 1: and I didn't solidify the move until my youngest graduated
Speaker 1: from high school. I also feel confident that this is
Speaker 1: the place I'll retire and live happily ever after, So
Speaker 1: that carries a small comfort in its own right to
Speaker 1: anyone listening. Even if your life hasn't involved a major
Speaker 1: geographical change, there are opportunities to appreciate where you are
Speaker 1: right now. I hope you find a moment today to
Speaker 1: sit with your own quietness, to let the noise fall
Speaker 1: away and to listen for the voice that's been waiting
Speaker 1: for you to hear it. Whether you're in the city
Speaker 1: or the country, surrounded by bustle or blanketed by silence,
Speaker 1: this story encourages us to seek to discover something new
Speaker 1: about ourselves. Maybe, like Skip, each of us can find
Speaker 1: that the most meaningful changes aren't dramatic. They're gentle recognitions
Speaker 1: that give you permission to become more fully who you are.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing this time with me today, with its
Speaker 1: quiet lessons and unspoken invitations. But before I sign off,
Speaker 1: let's talk briefly about next week. Next week, I'm returning
Speaker 1: to the main topic from the beginnings of this podcast.
Speaker 1: I'll be again exploring the topic of loneliness, featuring an
Speaker 1: essay from Ryan Delaney. It's a reminder that pausing our
Speaker 1: digital obsession may be the key to a more authentic
Speaker 1: connection in our own communities. I look forward to sharing
Speaker 1: it with you. Until next time, Take care,