The great thing is that even though there are some tasks, it's just not like at home where, over coffee my mind is immediately processing all the thing that need to be done in my own home. We have a large home on a large piece of property and there's an endless list of projects that are stored in my mental file cabinet. Over breakfast the dam breaks and I'm forced to choose and confront a daily project. Here, the pressure is off. Phew!
Last night sitting on the deck I observed the trees. Basically we're staying in the middle of a forest. This land was once Weyerhauser property and it's a dense forest of very tall trees. This is a change for this Illinois flatlander. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of very large trees in my area but not in such density.
As I relaxed and watched the forest I noticed a strange thing, strange for me at least. The air was not moving. Not one molecule was moving. In northern Illinois this is a rare occurrence. I can't say I seen a dead calm more than a few times and usually it meant disaster was close behind. When the air gets deadly still in Illinois there's probably a tornado close behind. What it means in central Arkansas is that you're going to have a sticky hot evening.
As I watched the canopy, a tiny leaf moved, almost inperceptibly. Then a few more leaves joined in as tiniest puff of air riffled through a small area at the top of an oak tree. No wide gusts of wind, just small eddys.
I suppose in northern Illinois we are conditioned to expect the blasts of air and we're not conscious of the part they play in our landscape. Only when they're absent are we shaken into awareness.
5 comments:
Sounds as if you and your mom are having time to just be and enjoy and destress. I mean when you're observing the slightest puff of air in the leaves... It's all good!
It sounds beautiful. Glad you are enjoying time with your mom!
I have to say I love the bush country. I've got family in southern Saskatchewan and spent a year at school there and lived in southern Alberta for a while and I just can't get used to the wind and the flat and the trees so few and far between. You can always tell where someone lives or has lived on the prairies because almost every single tree has been planted by someone. My mother loves the wide open prairies and would love to move back to them. But I love being surrounded by the trees :)
Could we have the pork tenderloin and it's recipe for the Monday Morning Staff meeting when you get home? Sounds great!
What a lovely post. Sometimes I suppose we miss the forest for the trees, or in this case, the wind.
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