Barefoot on a Country Road

I grew up spending most of our vacation time in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. It's this little town known for nurseries, places where old men sweat to grow plants and trees to sell to suburbanites. It's where my mom grew up, where my grandma still lives on a road named after my grandaddy. My granddaddy was one of those old men that planted one of those nurseries. As kids we would play hide and seek among all of the trees with our cousins, running barefoot along dusty rows of forsythia and tulip poplars. When we got too hot we would play imagination games in their basement or walk through the shaded woods digging up arrow heads. We cooked hot dogs over open fires and watched fireworks on the fourth of July. My grandma picked grapes and canned jelly. My grandaddy gave me my first box of charcoal pencils and let us listen to conversations coming over his CB radio.

For me and my sisters, and my cousins too I imagine, my grandparents house was a place of safety and innocence in a time before we all grew up and got complicated. Before we got too cool for running around barefoot in the dirt.

Last year my mom moved back to this place. To a little house she built on that road named after my grandaddy. So I brought my kids here for the week. In the past few days I've watched them run barefoot through dusty trails and play in my mom's basement. It's damp and smells like my grandparent's basement. They're digging in earth and wandering freely through the trees. My boy is especially content walking barefoot on a country road. They're souls are being nutured by the freedom to explore the earth.

I'm sitting by an open window, letting the fresh country breeze swirl around me. Maybe trying to relive a bit of that freedom, nuturing my own soul. I think I'll go walk barefoot through the trees.