The Farm

My husband grew up on a farm half an hour from Atlanta. We don’t go out there as often as we would like, but having both grown up in the country, there is a longing  within us for the open space and sounds of life on the farm. The landscape you grow up within becomes a part of you. The layout of trees, the placement of buildings, the colors and materials, they all become an additional sense, a way of knowing something. The farm’s pastures and pine trees that my husband grew up surrounded by are becoming mine as well. When I wander through the woods, I connect myself to the history of my husband’s childhood, the stories of sweat lodges and animals lived and died. I sit in the house, and I find a new detail, picture, or hideaway to teach me the secrets that live in the walls. His family and home are now my family and home, and they are my daughter’s as well. The house and land are now part of her senses that will fill her memories. There is something so grounding about being connected to the nature and architecture of the people whose existence brought you into life. I want my daughter to grow up feeling that stability.