Under the Maple

I can remember the Summers when I was in High School....it was before I was driving....we lived way out in the middle of nowhere and so I was left to entertain myself when I wasn't "going to town" to be with my friends.  I was a romantic girl with way too much time on my hands and a Library Card.

And so, I remember spending the hot days going to the river with my mom and sister....but what I remember was reading.

I would go out to the pasture....or the woods....or under an ancient pear tree and I would read.  I read books by Grace Livingston Hill that were written between the 20's to the 50's....I read L.M Montgomery.....Poems by Emily Dickinson....Henry David Thoreu....anyone that wasn't modern.  I remember sitting with my dog, Sundance and thinking this was the way to live your life.  (This was when the Monkees weren't on.)  I remember reading so much, it would be jarring to sit down with my family and face the real world.  I would forget what was real and what was fantasy.

As I got older, and got a car, my life got busier, and I wanted to live in the city....I wanted a different life than being so far away from the country....I wanted to live close to the store.  To be able to walk to the store if I wanted.

And so.....I lived in the city....I didn't love it.....and so as I got older I moved further and further from the city....and finally to an Island.

Well.....for the Summer I've been trying to make jellies....I've been spending my time the goats, and the dogs and I've been "making".  The other day I got a good book, and decided to go sit under our maple and to read.....and it was an amazing experience.....and as I lay on my back, looking up through the leaves to the sky I said a prayer of Thanksgiving for the opportunity to sit under a tree and read a book with my Charley, Corky and Nigel surrounding me....and I thought of the young me doing the same and how I wish I could go back and tell her how it was all going to end up....and that the city wasn't the thing she was born for.