Outdoor Therapy

There is something therapeutic about being outdoors. The smell of grass, the sound and feel of a light breeze, the sun on my face, this all speaks to my heart in a way that words can't. Not just any outdoors though. I hear no vehicles, no sirens. There is no music in the distance. There are no strangers walking about. If someone I don't know did happen to come up, a quick inquiry would discern who were his or her people and who are mine thus rendering us known to each other and strangers no more. There is not a lot of new blood in Newton County Mississippi. If someone is new blood they probably only come from a county or two away and aren't that exotic of a newcomer anyway. I on the other hand, while bearing the ticket of Newton County folk, have thrown a wrench in the works by driving a vehicle with dubious Maryland tags. The argument that I do indeed live south of the Mason-Dixon Line, in growing zone 7, and technically in the "South" holds no water here. But I digress. Lying here on a slope of St.Augustine with red dirt underneath next to a breem pond, I feel like I belong. I can breath here. There is room to be alone with the world, to think, the clear my head. The birds are tweeting and chittering. The crickets sing off and on. I hear a fish jump every so often. Some of those fish are libel to end up on our supper plates tonight. Today this comes not due to any effort on my part, but the efforts if my daughters and their grandparents. Those are memories that will anchor a little of Newton County in their hearts as well. But today I am the observer. I get some much needed time to think, and not think, and breathe, and just be. My dad commented earlier, "Well Honey, you were brought up in the country." It's part of who I am. I long for it and have dreams about it and feel most like myself when I'm in it. And today I'm getting revived by it.