Dust & Sunshine

I run through rows of corn taller than my twelve-year-old frame. The fuzzy, prickly stalks pull at my arms and legs and, occasionally slice like a paper cut into my skin. Somewhere, deep within the tidy rows, a bare circle of ground hides like an accidental fort…that magical spot where the tractor turned around and left nothing to grow.

In this accidental fort, I plop myself on the ground, eyes to the summer sky. The ground is hot and dusty beneath the Midwestern sun. Fluffy, whipped-cream clouds roll by with nowhere to go. There is no time here, save the rising and setting of the sun. I’ve nowhere to be, and nothing to do, so I lie in the dust watching the clouds play and shape-shift as they roll toward the ombre horizon.

That was twenty-five years ago.

Today, I wake early to a moody gray sky spitting snow, and sleet, and rain at us like it’s cursing. I get myself and the kids ready, and we rush out the door like we do every morning. Weaving through traffic, we make our way through the madness of Hartford down to school.

I have many a place to be and much to get done. Time is a taskmaster and ever my enemy these days.
We’re knee-deep in our “let’s build a house!” project — that precarious point when you’ve gone far enough to question your sanity, but too far to change your mind — sane or otherwise.

And I am tired.

Tired enough that I sat on the couch this week and cried. And if you don’t know me well enough to know, I’ll just tell you that is neither normal nor good.

When I’m tired from all these early mornings, or stressed from the traffic, or frazzled from running around, my heart and imagination retreat to that summer day in a cornfield beneath the clouds. A time when time wasn’t a thing. When there was no traffic or madness — only dust and sunshine.

And then I remember — that’s why we’re building this house, really. For the space and reprieve. For the fields and flowers, the dust and sunshine we might come home to each day should we survive another trip on i-91 😉

When I was twelve years old lying in a cornfield, my mother was about my age and busy raising six kids. She was not, I assure you, lying anywhere watching the clouds roll by. I can’t even picture what she would’ve looked like sitting down.

She was building a life for us (and my father, too). And I’m sure they were tired, tired enough to sit and cry.
But what they gave us in their work and sacrifice, was the freedom to run and play and make a study of the clouds and sunshine.

And that’s what I want for my children, too. Freedom. Freedom to run and play. Time to notice and ponder. A magical circle, an accidental fort in this loud, fast, exhausting world. I hope they remember the sunshine on their skin and the dirt at their feet.

We’re not building a house for a fancy place to live. Goodness, we had a house we loved already. We gave that up because, really what we’re building is a life, not a house.

This is our legacy — the dust and sunshine.