home IS where the heart is

today, my mind has been running a slide show of memories, all connected to this place, all part of what, or where makes me, me. 

the pasture where every year, around easter, we would go walking down cow paths and picking crocuses as a family. 

laying in swaths of wheat under a summer night sky, counting shooting stars with my dad, brother, and uncle. 

driving around, as a family, in spring checking how the crops were coming up and shooting gophers - the sun will forever be setting in this memory; that lovely golden, bathed in honey kind of light that i've only experienced on the prairies.

the dark ominous blue sky of a summer thunderstorm, the sweet, fresh smell of rain about to fall, the unearthly still before all hell breaks loose, the stark contrast of the green trees against that same sky, and huddling close to mom for comfort. 

the seemingly never-ending road through rolling hills of grain to the lake; the sudden glimpse of misty blueness and the more obvious hills of the river breaks that serve only to taunt you with their seeming nearness and then crush your hope with the rest of that interminable drive.  THEN, the suddenness of land giving way to blue water and soft sand. 

the downy softness of a duckling, caught so that my dad could show me. 
the sight and sound of water rushing through washouts and culverts when spring finally thaws the heart of winter.
the sun, hotter than expected after driving in the air conditioned coolness of the tractor, beating down as dad and i grab a handful of wheat from the hopper and he teaches me how to make wheat gum.
the tiny clearing in our trees that i always called "the place where time stands still" where i would sit in quiet, verdant solitude and listen to the birds.
the hoar frost that allows winter as lovely a garment as spring and has always caused me to believe that if i did SOMEthing right, i might make it into fairyland yet. 
so many scenes, and my words can never paint the picture as clearly or as beautifully as i still see it.  each scene, each memory, is connected by place, just as they are also connected by people.  for me, home will always be an intricately connected web of people and places.

happy to live where the trees wear diamonds

i'm pretty sure that this has been the most beautiful winter that i have ever lived through.  not only is there a blanket of white snow on the ground that HAS NOT melted since it fell, for the last many weeks, pretty much every day one wakes up to diamonds coating everything.  it's a whole other world.  a place where ANYthing could happen.  i keep on expecting ... i feel remarkably blessed by this place that i get to call home...and i'm almost at the point where her late spring garment doesn't seem like the most lovely dress that mother earth wears...this radiant wedding garb becomes her very well.  sky-blue against blinding white. 

my place

after reading maria's post (http://www.backinthehills.weebly.com/), i started thinking about my own sense of place.  it's not something i've really ever given much thought to and part of the reason for that, i think, is because my 'place' is so intrinsically a part of who i am.  indeed, i don't think, actually i KNOW, i would not be this person if it weren't for WHERE i am.  this area, my beloved southwest saskatchewan, is in my bones.  although once i was older, i moved about a bit for school,  i have essentially lived in the same place my entire thirty years.  and, when i moved (for school), this was always HOME.  For me, i suppose, it is about family too.  most of my life, my entire extended family has lived within about one hundred kilometres.  i know the hills around here, i know the trails and where they end up, i know where the sour leaves grow, where the buttercups come up, and where the hills are soft with the purple of crocuses in spring.  i could show you where i first learned to drive a vehicle, and which trail i practiced driving stick.  i can lead you through the fields, now of lentils and peas, then of wheat, to the hills where i spent hours of my free time dreaming, laying on my back looking at the clouds lazily floating by.  the hills where i danced and sang for the pure joy of being alive in this wonderful, open space - this over-looked paradise.  i know the long winters and have grown (again) to love them.  i know the joy of spring as she arrives in subtle but glorious beauty.  i still feel the prickle of prairie wool on my body from the times i lay prostrate on the ground simply to breathe in the gentle smells of clean earth, moss, flowers; of this piece of creation that i call home.  i have fallen asleep to the lullaby of robins singing cheerily in the branches next to my window, anxiously awaited the first meadowlark call that means spring has definitely arrived.  the sound of the wind whipping through the hills calls me home. 

yes, there have been times when i have lusted after other places; places more temperate, places slightly further away where EVERY one DOESN'T know your business and relatives must take a vacation to visit.  but, i've always known deep down that this, THIS IS HOME.  there have been times when i cursed the farming life that stressed my mom and dad so.  but always, i'm a farm girl; a prairie farm girl.  in the city, building and people close in on me and i must find some small green space to still my wildness.  i love travelling, the mountains, the sea, but it is only the prairies with their subtle beauty, their open spaces and hidden secrets that calm my soul and embrace me with the knowledge that I AM HOME.  i've always been a bit of a 'champion for the under-dog' - i have been friends with and defended people who are not your 'typical cool'.  perhaps that too draws the prairies close to my heart.  this is not a typical beauty, the usual paradise; this is a place that grips you, that requires you to look deeper.  this place requires more from you but once it has taken hold of you, once you've known the freedom and the beauty, you will never let go.

the prairie sunsets, the northern lights, the fields of rolling grass and grain, the openness, the solitude...all of this colors me, all of this is HOME.