I started my life as a child….

I’m 47, so I’ll let you do the math. Add to that another 20 years and hold that era in your mind as I tell this story.

I grew up in rural Appalachia. We were not connected to cultures outside of our immediate community. Our television only worked in the winter months due to the dense vegetation of the region. You see, the antenna attached to the side our home struggled to get Channel 3 when there were no leaves on the trees. As soon as the first spring buds pop on the trees, you could forget that you were ever someone with the luxury of an electrical box that brought the outside world in.

Due to this isolation, our community stuck to the old ways. We grew our food and preserved it in the fall. We ate wild game at our meals alongside green beans and fresh biscuits. We had party-line telephones and wringer washing machines.

For entertainment, we played outside. We never questioned whether or not we belonged to the earth. She was us and we were her.

Now that I’m in my mid forties and look back on those times, I almost cry. They were so sweet & pure, yet so painful and full of longing. Those times are gone. I wonder if my own child will find the same resonance with nature that I do? Does that only come from living so closely alongside it?

When I was this little girl in the picture, I knew there was more out there. I grew older, I became determined to find out what waited outside of the village.

I did and I’ll write about that later.

It wasn’t until I was well into my thirties that I started to hear a quiet, distant call to come home. I was surprised to notice that my curiosity about life outside of a small town was starting to mingle with the need to put my bare feet in wet grass. Soon, I needed that like a frog drinking through my skin.

So, I came back.

Me, Circa 1980, with puppies.