Ordinary Wonderment

Summer Sky, The Farm 2008.

Today's Joy: A Little Environmental Gratitude.

Can't help thinkin', Reader, as I'm driving past fragrant corn and soybean fields on my way home from work, how blessed we are to live in such a place. My commute to & from work is literally 25 minutes of meandering country back roads, surrounded by a few rolling hills, lots of picturesque farms and a smattering of woods here and there. Driving it never fails to improve my mood.

When my friend S-- was in town recently for a visit, I took her joy-riding to see some of my favorite wide open spaces. What she said about our northern Illinois countryside still sticks with me: "It's like living in a storybook."

Secretly, I've always thought so too. Life should imitate literature, playing out amidst proper woods filled with long-lived, scraggly oak trees--the sort that you'd find in a Washington Irving story. It should have a backdrop of orderly corn fields stretching away over low hills to meet the sunset. Life should also be full of gorgeous farmhouses, well-kept and cheerful--the pride of ancestral family properties--dotting the roadside. I suppose it's an overly-romantic viewpoint, but in my heart, it's true.

We may not have the hit-you-over-the-head sort of beauty you find at vacation spots, but there's something about daily life here in the countryside that becomes more and more pleasing to the soul the longer you're immersed in it. Winter, of course, is another matter. But for all the pleasantness of spring and fall and the thick humidity of summer, we are prepared to weather the windchill in January. It's the price you pay for residing in a setting fit for literature the rest of the year.

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~ Thornton Wilder

Quote courtesy of The Quote Garden.