THE PULL OF PLACE

Last week, I traveled to Hallnburg; a little town northwest of Munich in Germany, for a global meeting of organizational coaches (my day job). I scored a business class upgrade for the flight over, lie-flat beds being one of the few real improvements in aviation in the last fifty years. I had a great time with my colleagues. I spent hours after sessions walking the meticulously-clean and quiet countryside that reminded me so much of Southern Minnesota. I had a wild ten hours in Munich during their Pride Day festivities. In terms of all those things, it was a lovely trip.

But on the flight over, I found myself thinking about and already missing our Little Farm. I thought about our two gardens, finally completely planted with tomatoes, potatoes, kale, broccoli, turnips, corn, beans, peas, etc. in spite of June’s incessant, interminable rains. I recalled a thousand walks around our pasture, always amazed by the dozens and dozens of different wildflowers exploding out of the grass in the Spring, or the beautiful fury and blindingly-heavy snows of a January blizzard. I wondered just how much grass had grown up between my grapevines and what it would take for me to recover them from the grass once I was home. And I smiled at the thought of our two youngest dogs, with far more energy and exuberance than brains, dashing through the puddles, streams, and marshes back in the woods, turning their bodies sideways as they ran in an attempt to throw up as large a wall of water as they could, just for the simple joy of it. And more than once during an otherwise delightful week, I found myself slightly desperate just to be back home in the midst of that variety and abundance and beauty and peace.

Such is the pull of place. Growing up as I did, with my family moving five times between my fifth and sixteenth years, I never felt like I had “a place”. When, quite by accident, we found Little Farm, I felt as though I had finally come Home.