Inherent Happiness

There is an inherent happiness, a soothing flow to life, amid the days on this farm. Not to infer such contentment can not or does not fill other hearts in different  settings with the same heartfelt ease. Indeed over the course of my life I've found happiness in other settings, other locations. Still my heart knows the full range of ease, the inherent reliable sustained happiness, is tethered to this unique amalgam, this place, this farm. These fields, woods, pastures, house, objects, barns, ghosts, animals, past, present and future are magic for me, to me, surrounding me.

The sun behaves differently in this valley.  The old cow pastures remain green from their generations here. Those pastures are intense with a depth of green that can not be delivered by  a contract with chem-lawn.

There are whispers of the past. Whispers from generations of lives that unfolded her and accumulated and layered their stories. Weathered wood. Hand worn  wood. Stair treads that are ever so gently cupped in the center from hundreds of thousands of trips up and down them by footfalls large and small.

Forgotten objects uncovered in corners and attics and in turned earth. Glass that should exists only in shards and fragments that flash from the soil as a glint in the sun and emerge unfathomably intact. *the image below is of such a piece*  Time machines, these pieces. My mind, or my heart, can not resist the mystery. The wondering game of who brought this here? Who touches it last? How did it come, sans obvious breakage, to be discarded here amid this field? How, oh how, did it survive unscathed in the many ensuing years?!

So many mysteries. Such a sense of time, ongoing,  An owl feather found. Crows that follow me. Pieces of glass, of metal, of horse harness, of life and times I can only image as I wend my way back to chosen aspects of their way of life. I plant my (few) crops. Pin the laundry to the cotton lines. Speak to the swallows. Listen to the woods.  Find the ferns.  Listen. Learn. Understand what matters.  Work intensely, sleep well. The food on the table is real. The bread from my hand, my oven  is real. The water drawn up from the ground is cold. I'm the current chapter in the story of the life of these fields, house, barn, birds, breeze....

Perhaps one day someone will wonder about me, about my life here on this land, in this old house.

This farm, nestled in this valley is magic. I suspect it always was. And now, its magic is for me.

Inherent happiness.

in·her·ent/inˈhi(ə)rənt/

Adjective:

Existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute