Newark, North Carolina

I spent a few precious hours over three days last week with my son's family in relatively rural Ohio. There is a large cornfield right outside their back door perhaps 15 feet from the porch, just, and I mean only just, past their driveway. Once in particular I stepped outside and looked across the lightly rolling country, over the currently plowed up cornfield, and I smiled reflexively. I was ambushed by an old feeling, one I hadn't felt in years. I felt like I was back in North Carolina in my youth, looking out over the 13 acres of my grandfather's small farm. You could step off his back porch and spy a similar sight.

What goes around, eh? I find that the older I get the more often I am overtaken by old sensations, even those now decades old. This is not a bad thing. I wonder if it's what keeps us sane; there's something good to be said about continuity within cycles, of similarities with differences. We have the seasons, each distinct (in much of the world anyway) yet returning. It allows us change while also grounding us. We need change. But we need constants too.

So I had the opportunity to remember what it was like to be with me old Grandpaw Hutchins, up early and checking out the crops, if only for a relatively fleeting moment. I found in an instant a connection between my oldest son and the great-grandfather he only met once, and that as a six month old infant. We have a picture of them somewhere; I need to find it.

Anyway, what goes around. Life is good.