Reflecting

Just before sunset, for fifteen short minutes, as the kids are expelling the last of their wild leaps across the yard and the animals stand suspended, waiting for their evening grain, I connect with my ancestors. I gaze out at the same hillside that they once worked their plows, that they hunted and fished upon, that they gathered paw paws, walnuts and berries upon. For a moment, there are no cars on the nearby highway, no airplanes flying above. I hear a hawk cry in the distance, the sound of the wind, the river twisting below. I pick up the bucket of grain, just as my Grandmother did and her parents before her. My little ram and the two ewes follow me into the pen. His head is against me and I reach down to scratch his soft fur. He probably is only interested in the feed, but it is so fulfilling to look into his trusting eyes. The donkeys and the chickens are following me now, all ready for supper. Ive found that they all respond best to different ways of communicating. I am slowly learning techniques that, to my grandparents was second nature, even survival. I wonder sometimes what my Grandmother would think. When she passed away, I was a misplaced city girl, slowly finding her way back to her roots. My eldest child was months away from being born, I couldn't lift a five gallon bucket and the only animal I took care of was a housecat. When she was alive, we weren't very close but since Ive came back home, I feel sometimes as if I know her just from walking her steps. Sometimes I imagine her watching as I secure the latch to the chicken coop. I can almost see my Great Grandfather smiling as I toss a bail of hay into the shed. Ive came to appreciate, admire, and even long for the lifestyle that they led. There is a peace in simplicity, in the still perfection of God's creation. There is fulfillment in my fifteen minutes, a breath of fresh air, a slice of a past I never knew, of a present that couldn't be more right.