As we grow up, there is a portion of our soul that is constantly striving to be older than we really are. And, as we age, we are always striving to regain the youth we once had. Life becomes so incredibly busy and demanding that we forget to see the joy in simplicity, and fail to pursue the wild thoughts that once ran freely through our childhood imaginations. I will leave you with this short tid-bit that I wrote in remembrance from my past..a place that unfortunately no longer exists, but will always hold a tremendous place in my heart.
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Everywhere I went, I was constantly being surrounded by crops that lay beneath my bare feet, and the owls that loom over my head. Every summer, I find myself wanting to go back up to that place, where so many memories were made as a child. Not many people get the chance to experience what I did-sitting in a house, in the middle of an empty lake bottom, breathing in fresh air, with no cars zooming past. To me, this ground is ultimate freedom.
Memories of sitting at this place, my family farm, go back as far as I can remember. As a little kid, I think about driving down what seemed to be the longest road ever built, waiting to see the gigantic poplar trees shooting into the sky. Once I saw these trees, I knew we had arrived. It was always a sharp right turn onto a dirt pathway to the farm. We always parked our car just in front of my Great-Grandma's two story house, covered with Autumn leaves and spider webs.
Sitting just in front of us as we walked into the house was a blue 1954 Cadillac that belonged to my Great Grandpa Schultz. It hadn't been driven in years, but I always dreamed that someday I would be able to drive it. Just beside it were weeds that grew to be three to four feet tall. I always ran past the Cadillac, past the weeds and piles of junk that lay around the house, knowing that inside, there would be mounds of homemade cinnamon rolls and other goodies that were to be given to me.
I would run up on the porch, where there were always a bunch of ants and flies surrounding me. Grandma never picked up the cat food, but I didn't care. As I swung open the door to the porch, Grandma stepped out with a huge grin on her face, and said, "Hi Kiddies!" I gave her a big hug and ran into the kitchen, to see how many cinnamon rolls I could possibly eat before my parents came into tell me to stop. the kitchen was built in the early 1900's, and it had this old fashioned charm to it that no other kitchen has today. The walls were made of rugged ruby red bricks, covered up in some areas with pale white cabinets, and leftover dinner that somehow didn't end up on our plates.
After I finished eating and vising, my brother and I would always run back out through the kitchen, past the porch, past the blue Cadillac, and onto the hundreds of acres of fields that lay at our leisure. We kicked off our shoes, and ran forever on the miles of potato fields, stopping every once in a while to sit and play in the freshly plowed dirt. I didn't realize it then, but i now know just how amazing that Tulle Lake dirt is. The smell is sweet as silk. The temperature was always cold, even colder sometimes than that of the air.
Sitting just feet away from the fields were the vast and sometimes empty cellars used to store potatoes. The aroma was even better than the dirt and fields we ran through. They were always cold, damp and dark, but somehow my brother and I were never bothered by this. Owls and bats would sometimes fly just feet above us, while mice scrambled to get past our feet. On occasion, there would be trucks full of freshly plowed potatoes, men rushing around us, working to fill the cellars with the freshly picked crops. Other times, there was no one around, allowing us to think and be surrounded by complete solitude. There wasn't much to see inside of this place, but just being in there away from the rest of the chaotic world was enough to make you want to stay forever.
Just after taking your first step outside of the cellar, a cool breeze would rush onto your face. The once bright autumn sky of day would begin to diminish into a soft pallet for the autumn night. In preparation for the night to come, all of the small critters, my brother and I included, would start to head back to their safe places for the night. Heading back to the house for the second time that day wasn't nearly as exciting. I I didn't run anymore. I walked slowly past the weeds and the blue 1954 Cadillac, past the entrance where the ants and flies once swarmed-then into the warm, sweet smelling, old fashioned kitchen where dinner awaited us.
The excitement had been exhausted for the day and as we finished our dinner, we somehow found ourselves sitting in the big leather chair that was in the family room. After visiting with family, we made our last journey through the old fashioned kitchen, through the porch once heavily laden with flies and ants, past the blue 1954 Cadillac, and finally back to our car. From there, we had to make our way back down the small dirt pathway, this time a left turn onto the vast and empty highway, and then leaving paradise to wait for us until our next visit in the future.
With love,
Kim
