LEAN DOWN YOUR EAR UPON THE EARTH AND LISTEN

Turn off the interstate in what is the very definition of a fly over state. Take the off ramp to a 4 lane State Route that exists only to connect two dots on a map unfamiliar to anyone but the natives. Half way between those two dots you arrive at an intersection with a 2 lane County Road. Here you will find a few gas stations with various amenities attached. A mechanics shop, a restaurant, or salon. There might even be video rental store still clinging to life in an area that struggles with reliable internet. The flashing yellow light at the intersection beckons you to stock up on supplies and watch for on-coming traffic. Leaving this oasis of unleaded gasoline and fizzy drinks behind you continue down the County Road until it turns into a paved farm road. Be careful to dodge alignment ending pot holes while keeping a wary eye out for wildlife or loose livestock dodging you. Eventually the asphalt begins to break apart until it gives way to gravel and dirt. Follow this dusty path a bit longer till it dead ends at the driveway. You have arrived. Home.

You brace for an arrival that will likely be chaotic. Arms laden with suitcases and children are unburdened to make to room for welcoming hugs and kisses. Dogs bark and children squeal with excitement as the compulsory platitudes are issued by the grandparents.

“My how big you’ve gotten”.

“What are you feeding these kids”?

“Do you know how much Papa and Nana have missed you”?

“Yes, Nana bought your favorite cookies”.

“Oh, stop your fussing one cookie isn’t going to ruin their dinner”.

Eventually the car gets unloaded and the dogs are banished to the yard to expend their energy chasing the squirrels back into their arboreal homes. Travel weary children settle into a distracting mixture of playing with Papa and watching their favorite cartoons. Meanwhile their parents busy themselves helping Nana finish dinner as she is debriefed on the status of her diasporic family. The table is set, and dinner is served. For the most part conversation is casual and polite though you’ll likely have to dodge a few potential flare ups. For example, the “When are you going to move my grandchildren closer to home?” conversation can be squashed by the gentle retort “When you get a real property tax and build a decent school for them”. Looks will be exchanged but the minefield is successfully navigated. Dishes are put away, and the family retires to the living room. Soon after exhausted and well-fed children are bathed and put to bed. Take in a deep breath. Exhale.

With the children settled in their beds and my parent’s curiosity momentarily satiated I grab my opportunity to step out on the porch. The setting sun ignites the western horizon in hues of orange and pink as the evening stars appear in the twilight to herald the coming night. There is a cool wind blowing in from the east that adds a crisp freshness to the air. It is in these brief respites of solitude that can I hear the stillness of the earth. Now let me be clear here, stillness is not the same as quiet. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The spring fed creek babbles through the forest as frogs and crickets call out to each other from the shadowed areas around it. Off in the distances the voices of owls rise as those of the cows fade. It is a veritable symphony from time immemorial complete with its own pitch and timbre. It’s not quiet, but it is tranquil. The kind of tranquility that only exists when every fiber of the world knows its place in the order of things. The suns comes up and the sun goes down all the while nature responds in the same patient manner it has for millennia. It is as if everything is the way it should be.

For me, however, it is so much more than stillness. More than tranquility. My children now play on the same dark blue carpet that once bore the weight of my own small feet. Tonight I will sleep in my old room downstairs that still has the same “not quite musty” basement smell that it had 20 years ago. When I wake in the morning I will likely be greeted by the smell of eggs and bacon along with my mother’s standard, “Good morning buddy” as if I were on my way out the door to school. I have exchanged my favorite Handy Smurf glass for a coffee cup brandishing the emblem of whatever state my parents picked it up in. Still, I enjoy watching my own son carefully grip that same glass with two hands because he just loves drinking out of “Daddy’s cup”. It is a notion of familiarity that occupies an unshakable place in my mind. It is foundational.

That’s not to say that I am unaware of time’s incessant march toward decay and entropy. I’m not blinded by my own la vie en rose. In this house I helped my parents build so long ago it confronts me at every turn. The weather grey deck boards, distorted from the changing of the seasons, buck their nails in a vain attempt to free themselves. Years of traffic manifest itself as pale thin spots in the once lush carpet. Cracks in the drywall and misaligned doors betray not just a shifting foundation, but ephemeral nature of the structure. The wrinkles and gray hairs that now adorn my parents do much the same. That is why I listen.

I listen to the wind whispering in the pines. I listen to the laughter of my children chasing their cousins around the couch and down the hall. I listen to my mother’s gentle warning that veers them away from kitchen and back into the living room. Listen to my father dole out life lessons to his grandchildren like a Gideon with his bibles. I breath it all in deep and hold there a moment too long hoping that some of it will infuse my very soul. I do this because I know that one day the foundation will crumble. Boards will rot and nails will rust. One day tears will fall as hymns are sung around dated stones. On those days I will gird myself with more than memories. I will have a sense of belonging instilled deep inside my core. Roots that I can transfer to the next construct of wood and concrete in need of being filled with love and laughter. Wiser men than I have lamented that you can’t go back home again but maybe, just maybe, you can take a piece of it with you.