I asked my cousins Hannah (age 10), Lily (age 7) and Max (age 12) to blog with me about Malibu, Exurbia. We started by taking turns typing Exurbia blurbs:
Lily’s Exurbia Blurb - Exurbia is some where out of the city, it is some where were we live, it feels like your far away from shops, and anything. It looks like nothing but tree’s and wild all around you. the only other living things we see are wild animals. One wild animal could be a coyote, or a mountiain lion, or a deer.
Max’s Exurbia Blurb - I don’t have much to say about living in Exurbia, except that it is not really Exurbia it’s isolated Exurbia. We are fifteen minutes away from any civilization. We’re the Exurbia of Malibu. Every town has its Exurbia.
Hannah’s Exurbia Blurb - No, civilization is right down the road! There is a restaurant called Neptune’s Net, just 5 minutes away! The bad thing about living in Exurbia is that say, you don’t have any milk, and you have a biscotti, which is the only thing that you can eat in the house, you have no milk to dunk the cookie in, so the biscotti is rock hard! But the nearest grocery store is 15-20 minutes away, its not worth driving that much for a gallon of milk. Also, if you are a kid, you don’t have billions of neighbors who have kids to play with, so it is hard to meet new people.
Susanna’s Exurbia Blurb - There’s a lot of light in Exurbia, and I like how you can diffuse it at different times of the day, and feel time pass.
Hannah then pointed out that we still need to define Exurbia since readers might not know what Exurbia is. A good point given the fact I’d only learned about Exurbia yesterday when Nick Roberts, who designed the home with his wife, Cory Buckner, told me that living out here on the farthest edge of Malibu was living in Exurbia. So, I decided to transcribe our attempt to collaboratively define Exurbia. At Max’s insistence, I am putting “collaboratively” in quotation marks.
The Definition of Exurbia
Hannah: I think we have to define what Exurbia is.
Susanna: Okay. What is Exurbia?
Lilly: Exurbia is somewhere out of the city.
Max: Basically where nobody is. A town that really isn’t because everybody moved into the suburbs. It’s basically a ghost town. Where nobody lives. If Malibu was a heart, we’d have pins and needles.
Hannah: What?
Max: Because pins and needles is when you don’t have enough blood. If Malibu was a heart and people were blood; we’d have pins and needles.
Hannah: Which is when you don’t have enough blood.
Max: What’s that sickness when you don’t have enough blood in your body or something?
Hannah: It’s not a sickness. It’s just when your foot goes all tickly.
Lily: Can I say something about Exurbia?
Max: This is amazing. You’re just, like, writing. She’s writing down everything we say.
Lily: Oh, I know what I wanna say.
Max: I like that I can say anything and everybody will read it.
Lily: Okay, I know what I wanna say. Exurbia is. Somewhere. Where there’s basically no, um.
Max: The government should like hire you for those people at interviews who write down what the suspects say.
Hannah: Don’t interrupt Lily. Otherwise this blog is going to get boring.
Max: You wrote down—
Lily: –now, nobody interrupt. Okay this is what I’m gonna say. Exurbia is somewhere where there’s no buildings or cars or streets or houses or pollution.
Max: Well, yeah there is. It floats up. You can see the smog from where we live.
Lily: uh. and there’s gonna be. there’s like. no. No traffic lights. And there’s no grocery stores.
Max: And this place caught on fire as well. Like a long time ago, though.
Lily: Max, don’t interrupt. I’m trying to say something.
Max: Yeah, but you’re just blabbering on.
Hannah: Max, don’t interrupt please.
Max: You constantly interrupt me.
Lily: This is what I wanna say. Just stop it Max. I think that Exurbia is somewhere where there is nothing that you see in a city.
Max: It’s warmer here.
Hannah: No, no, no.
Max: No, no, no. It depends on which suburbs. Because we’re a suburb of Point Doom which is closer to the sea and the sea makes it cold. It’s true.
Lily: Okay but this is what I wanna say.
Max: We’re also a suburb of a Thousand Oaks. Which is much hotter than here.
Lily: This is what I say. That Exurbia is nothing like a city.
Hannah: You already did that.
Max: You said that already.
The People of Exurbia
Hannah: Okay. I’m going to give my explanation of Exurbia now. Exurbia. Is basically the mountains or the desert where its the wilderness except for some occasional houses. There are other people living in Exurbia. We know two or three. Like. four. We know a lot of people that live near us. That also live in Exurbia. It’s not like we’re the only ones here. The whole mountainside full of people.
Max: Well….full
Hannah: Still quite a lot. I think Lily and Max are exaggerating on how unpopulated Exurbia is.
Max: We may be exaggerating but you’re underestimating.
Hannah: There are many other Exurbias than our mountainside. All over the world.
Lily: Okay, this is is. Well, I think Exurbia. Well, actually. We. I only know two people.
Hannah: I know much many. I know one, two, three, four, five six, seven.
Max: Oh, seven’s a big number. It’s just an itty, bitty…
Hannah: It’s just that you don’t know anyone, Max.
Click here, if you’d like to read an earlier Hannah, Lily and Max post.
Click here to read their next adventure in Exurbia
