When I was eight or just turning it my family moved to an island and settled on a thirteen acre hobby farm. We had moved from town on a very busy road to a quiet country road. The quietness almost settled upon you in a way that unless you've had it settle on you you'll never quite understand. Our previous house has been close to train tracks and there were scant minutes of quiet. We had neighbors so close we could wave at them through the windows and open the windows and chat. On the farm there was no one close enough to see through the windows. Out my windows there were apple trees blooming in Spring and my mother's vegetable garden and our fields with the horses. Where I live now there is a field across the road and I can't see in anyone elses windows. I feel so thankful. So thankful for this home and the field. I keep dreaming though of that time. I would go back through the fields, over the creek and into the back field where there was nothing but fields and trees. I would sit in the tall grass in silence. Except there was not silence there was the buzz of bees in the purple clover and there were birds singing and you'd hear horses snorting and sometimes a deer would wander by and I'd just sit.
My life now does not hold much silence. With five children in a space where we are all close all the time I find I am wishing to go sit in my own field surrounded by Buttercups and Clover and just feel that quiet settledness that comes.
xo
