Winter’s Slow Departure

The moon rises high.  Snow-lit silver against the early evening midnight blue of an Ohio sky.

The air is still frosted with a biting cold edge, though the calendar says it’s late April.  A sweetness I can almost taste is in the slight wind that sweeps up from the lake below. Chilly sounding little frogs fill the air with a hopeful springtime chorus.  “Peep Peep Peep Peep” they echo one another, brave cold little creatures.

Poor small things woke from their long winter sleep expecting spring and instead were greeted with freezing cold nights and fitful snowy days, not the warmth they must have hoped for.

Far across the valley, I hear the traffic headed north on the interstate.  When I was a little girl I would lay in my bed, listening to that same traffic and long to be able to hurry along with them.  To go far far away from the sorrows that seemed to fill my small world. I’d listen to the lonely sounds of the big trucks headed north to Canada, past vast storm-tossed Lake Erie, impossibly deep and uncrossable.

I’ve finally come full circle.  After traveling that very interstate southward many years and miles ago, I did find that escape, that new life and went to live on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina for two long sun-filled decades.

But the longing for home never leaves us does it?  Even homes that were often filled with sadness had their measure of love and yes, their need for forgiveness and the mending of deep wounds.  The healing of old scars.

And so I came back, fiercely reluctant at first.  Back to the aching cold winters and vibrant green springs.  To the valley where I was raised.  Back to the very home-place and acres that I left long years ago, vowing it the last place on earth I would ever want to live again.  My parent’s old farm, which was large enough to divide me my own spot to build a life, or perhaps rebuild one.

I had almost stopped writing this sort of missive.

The intricacies of WordPress had almost defeated me and for long months I refused to enter this jungle of technology and instead puttered happily with my peppermint cleaners and sweet puppy’s breath.

But I found myself missing my kindest of readers and their sweet words, many of those words full of another kind of healing balm and friendship.  Missing this place to write about the beauty of life and the laughter and yes, the pain.  The gift of being able to share this country life with the readers I had come to love.  I found myself on nights like this one, thinking about words and writing sentences in my head.  Sentences that would float insistently through my thoughts like forlorn children pleading to be given their own place to soar.

Pondering how to make the scene live for those of you who might also need a breath of sweet spring air to blow away the dust of a long winter past.

And so God had a plan, though I fought long with Him about it and declared I knew best.

(and not He who knoweth all things)

He had a plan for a new home we would call Foxglove Farm, a new life which has brought more peace and joy than I could have imagined.

He had a plan which included the healing that my soul so badly needed, the writing and the friends far and near it has given me and work that brings great joy with the dogs that are part of the fabric of my life.  Home to the place that I had forgotten I loved with the dearest of all husbands to share it with.

And yes, thankfully too, His plan included one very special small dog named Agatha.

How grateful I am that He led and knew the way and eventually I trusted Him enough to follow.