Every fall nostalgia kicks in. Maybe it’s the natural ebb and flow of life, things start to die back this time of year and bodies go into hibernation. For whatever reason though, I pull back the cobwebs that have been in the back of my mind, and in the cleaning process, it triggers this sense of needing to feel close to my roots, my home, and where I grew up.
Fondly, I go to New England…
Its stonewalls and turtlenecks, and emotions, held tight to the breast.
I feel stoicism, resilience, hardiness, and simplicity.
It’s about sitting down to baked beans and brown bread on Saturday night and then chasing it with coffee, donuts, and social graces on Sunday morning after church.
It’s where we have supper instead of dinner and I have “aunts” rather than “ants”.
New England is about the steadfast rules of old culture and about mending your fences…because they make good neighbors!
It’s crackling leaves under my feet in the fall, and the smell of wood smoke, being carried on a brisk evening breeze.
The scent of a freshly-baked apple pie wafting through the house and the late afternoon gold strip of sunshine, stretching across a worn, wooden kitchen floor.
Cozy little rooms, with short ceilings, candlelight dancing between the shadows on the old plastered walls.
It’s no-frills but rather a thrift, ensconced in the white lights that sit in the windows during the holidays.
An old lilac hedge that still guards a crumbling stone cellar foundation.
Snow drifts that meet the sills, peepers that greet early in the spring.
A silent cupola sitting on the roofline of a weathered old barn attached to a century-old white farmhouse.
Apple trees in the pasture, and one cow grazing amidst dandelions and burdocks.
Old, barbed wire fence.
Trickling clear streams, chuckling their way down through a forest of balsam and hardwoods; granite-topped mountains.
Lapping water at the banks of a lake and looking out at the steel blue waves crashing against the jagged rocks of the coastline.
It’s eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a red and white checked picnic blanket; blueberries and saltwater taffy.
It’s home. The joyful place where I go when my heart sings, and a protective place when I feel tearful.
New England. Where strength and resilience meet my melancholy.
Where my spirit looks around and feels at peace.
With love,
Kate
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