Tell me. When was the last time you smelled the air as you breathed it? The last time you stopped to number the blades of grass under your feet. Or closed your eyes and listened for the sound of birds mingling? Urban life is lively, fast paced and fine indeed. But, there is something about slow poking down unpaved roads and picking up unfamiliar foliage that reawakens the senses and removes the spirit from hustle and bustle to a peaceful place. I spend as much time as I can on my family’s east Texas estate, just to breathe it all in. The green of the trees, the natural waters, the manure…

The last time I visited, I went with my grandmother who is always eager to answer my citified questions about the place. Often things like, “What kind of berry is this, Gramah?” &  “Can I eat it?” Without fail, my questions open up a time portal that lifts us both from the moment, and sweeps us into a black and white portrait of her childhood. Adventure stories of running from cows that weren’t even chasing her and hitting bullies over the head with lunch pails, leave us both doubled over and howling. We live by a different set of rules there. We eat from pots or on tin plates, we wear camouflage boots with every outfit, and we don’t look at clocks.

Time is no match for this type of serenity anyhow. Hay and tall grasses with colorful blooms sway all around. Cows meander curiously toward cars, suspecting that they may bring treats. Here, it is not highway noise and sirens that mark nightfall, but coyotes howling and stars glimmering close enough to touch. Then morning… Ahh, morning. The sun gives life to roosters somewhere in the distance. Tea and coffee and biscuits lure the people out of bed and they are happy to be a part of it all. Still pajama clad, I wiggle into my dads oversized boots and bust out the front door just to see. Just to prove to myself that the windows at my bedside are telling the truth about the sky. That it really is that blue and unpolluted. Dew on the ground calls me to squat down and moisten my fingertips. At this vantage point, another world comes into focus. The grass blades are already at work photosynthesizing and the ants are in strict formation.Tadpoles in the tank, where cows water themselves, swim gracefully about there business and their elders croak at the waters edge. Life… This is life.

I got lucky on that trip. I hadn’t planned to come back to the city with any tokens, but my grandma surprised me when she sent me out to a tree in the corner of the fence. I walk past the tree every visit and did the same this time without noticing the golden nuggets hanging from its limbs. All these years, I didn’t even know it was a peach tree! I picked every peach that ants and other bugs hadn’t already claimed for themselves. Two grocery bags full! Pulling them gave me a sense of pride, as if I had planted them there. I wonder who did.. My great-grandmother? Her mother?

When we got back to Dallas, my grandma made preserves with the small peaches that came from our own land. No pesticides, no preservatives, just sunlight and love. Life… it tastes like life.