Photography & Words by Alison Engstrom

Last February, I shared how after much deliberation, my husband and I decided it was time to leave city life behind and move to the country in Connecticut. Even though we were in the throws of the pandemic, we both knew that on most days BC (before corona), we weren’t jumping at the chance to fully use what the city offered. I found myself staying in my neighborhood more and less interested in venturing out to the other ‘cool’ hot spots. During the week, I was running around here and there, mostly in the Manhattan, but I could feel the luster starting to dim. On the weekends, I just wanted out. For years I spent the weekends relishing my time in Central Park and then Brooklyn Bridge Park but a couple of years ago, I just wanted to be far away, experiencing the quietness of the woods and nature, not going on a walk through a city park with hoards of people.

So here I am over six months in and I thought I would share what I really think about life 70 miles outside the place I would never leave. We arrived in what could only be described as the middle of winter. We moved between two snowstorms and where getting around the city was hard, but even harder was loading a moving truck around 5 foot—or more—snowbanks on a very narrow Brooklyn street. I’ve moved a lot in my life, but this was the absolute worst. Typical moves in New York, you leave things at the curb for other people to take, it’s one of the best parts about living there! We had nowhere to put things except stashed on top of the snow or stuck in a strategic way. Once we arrived and were able to unpack my husband asked me, can you hear how loud the quiet is here? I fully understand the paradox here, but unlike where we left, the silence was here and it was what I craved.

When winter turned into spring, we planned our garden—vegetable and flower—and plugged away on creating the dream we envisioned. We hammered fencing into our backyard, I tended seeds that I started in March and watched everything blossom and grow. I laid bricks down for a path and dug garden beds and was overjoyed with the process of designing my garden. It wasn’t without many failures though—too much rain, ravenous woodchucks, ferocious Japanese beetles, there were times when I couldn’t see the forest through the trees and I was ready to wave my hands up in surrender. For this reason, I dubbed my first year flower garden, the-little-flower-garden-that-could. Cosmos, peonies, China asters, lupine, daisies, all that I had coddled for months in my seed growing area had been eaten and all that was left was a tiny stub. I learned very quickly that any lesson you need to learn or rather re-learn in life can be through gardening: you start with the dream but then that slowly unravels to patience, persistence, failure, wins, losses, bounty, consistency, and so on. One pleasure, while I was sorting out how to cultivate my own food, was foraging everything from garlic mustard and dandelions to chives. Every walk in the woods in early summer led to handfuls of wild raspberries or blackberries being enjoyed as I inhaled the fresh air, their juices staining my hands.

For those who have read ROSE & IVY since the start, shopping locally and supporting farmers is paramount in my book. Not only are you supporting those who grow your food—did you know in a grocery store farmers only make 15 cents on every dollar spent, terrible—but it tastes way better and it’s more economical. I had ideas and visions of visiting farmer’s markets up here and delighting in produce practically grown in my own backyard, but I have found that not to be the case. I will say, this has been the only part where I really miss New York. Who would have thought that moving to the country would make me miss the farmer’s markets in a city? In this way, I have been spoiled because outside of Europe, the markets in New York are just that good. I recently had a conversation with a farmer up here who gave me the strangest look when I said I wanted the carrot tops on my carrots—to make pesto, of course. Alas, moments like that I do feel deflated, but I am that person who will arrange my schedule to go into the city on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday just to hit up the Union Square Market and lug a bunch of onions home or carrots with their tops intact.

Now that we are in September, I’ve reflected on the spring and summer that passed and know we made the right decision. This area is incredibly beautiful with farms, wildflower fields, hikes, and close enough to take a dip into the Long Island Sound. It’s taken some practice (some days have been hard) slipping into a framework of a routine. Living in New York, I felt like the city held me in and kept me together in a way, I’d liken that to stimulation and distraction, which was everywhere and all of the time. My anxiety which was debilitating near the end there has waxed and waned, some days it still creeps up on me. Instead of being stifled, I have more room to expand and to take in quieter moments under a canopy of trees. I’ve reacquainted myself with things I seemingly forgot about, parts of nature and myself that I sacrificed for a long time to pursue the city dream. Sometimes I think to myself, have I lost who I was by shedding a layer of who I thought I was supposed to be? The answers to these questions I believe will come over time as I continue to evolve in this new stage of life.

The-little-flower-garden-that-could, next year it will be better.

A Slower Pace, Reflections On Life In The Country