Country Girl

In case you didn't know, beloved Reader (all 3 of you), I grew up on farm outside of Saratoga Springs, NY. When I left for college in Boston, I rarely came home. In an effort to relax and reconnect with my roots, have returned to the "farm" for the month of September. Anticipate much introspective nonsense and (hopefully) some inspired missives.
This first farm blog was intended to describe the unbelievable beauty of this place. I suppose I could just post a photo but what I find beautiful is more etched in my memories. I have lived here since birth and I could walk you to where I scraped my knee learning to ride my bike, where I had my first kiss, my secret hiding places where I would go when I didn't want to be found, and the pond where I skinny-dipped as a wayward youth.
There is too the pure physical beauty of the place, the lush rolling greens, the gold fray of the corn fields, and the willows casting their images upon the sparkling waters of the pond. I can imagine this place in all seasons, dark and dangerous in the thunder storms, peaceful candy-coated white in the winter, alive and burning in the fall.
I dug up a short story I wrote 3 years ago as an undergraduate. It was my own little love letter to the farm and the way I was raised. I think it best describes the farm that I grew up on.


A Love Song for Fireflies

You are dead asleep. You sleep the sleep of the unencumbered. Your black is black. It sinks deep within your heart and when you sigh, your body shudders. Suddenly, out of the impossible darkness, you are awoken. You gasp. A sliver of moonlight cuts your bedspread like a knife slicing tomato.
A tinkering blinks upon your window. Your ears perk up at the sound of a small pebble hitting the faded fire department sticker. Again. The pebble twinkles somewhere near your most left window.
You rub your eyes sitting up in bed. Pushing the covers away you kneel next to the windowpane. You see what you expected to see. A boy stands, his broad face lit by the silver weight of the moon. Pressing your hand to the handle, you crank open the window. The humid August night breathes hot next to your face. The peepers bleat from a distance, from beneath your window, from everywhere, from nowhere.
“Shh,” you call to the shadowy figure creeping in the bushes. He beckons wildly. You hold up a finger.
Clamping the window locks down, you close out the night. Slowly, deliberately, you pull denim cut-off shorts over tan legs like cinnamon sticks. A gray sweatshirt that smells of bonfire smoke is pulled over your head. You blink unseeing in the bright bathroom light, you pull your long tangled hair into a ponytail, the elastic snapping at your hands. It’s dark, you decide, he won’t see you. But he will, he always can, and it never matters what you look like.
Holding sparkled jelly flip-flops tight in your left hand, you make your way down an old staircase, avoiding the spots that creak. You know instinctively which floorboards will moan beneath your toes. You tunnel further down in the great old house, past the gentle whirr of the refrigerator, past the sleeping sheep dog (she barely raises her head to acknowledge you now), into the basement, past the dusty furnace that horrified you as a child, through the back door, into the night.
The night is alive. Thick with the sounds of bullfrogs and humid with fireflies, the night swallows you whole and you breath as if you are drowning in it. You slip your feet into the flip-flops, crunching over crumbling redbrick patio. He’s standing ten feet away, watching your parents’ window for a flicker of light, any suspicious movement. There is nothing, the empty windows of the house stare blankly back at you.
You take his hand. Warm and large, his hands are sandpaper next to yours. Calluses from farm work and lifting weights and a childhood spent in the woods trace over his lifeline. You are always affectionate with his hands; you adore the way his life is written on his palms. You hold his hand with a relaxed familiarity. You wink at him in the moonlight. The night, despite the humidity, has an undercurrent of chill and you are pleased you wore the sweatshirt. Together, you let yourself fall down the hills of tall grass, into the cornfields, where you break away from him, running wildly through the rows.
Every stalk grabs at your legs and arms and hands. You feel red scratches forming on your calves and you stop to itch. He’s calling your name, a tone of annoyance in his deep voice. He hates the cornfields at night. He hates the feeling of being lost. He’s the type of boy who likes to know exactly where he is going. He prefers the straight path.
But you, you love the cornfields. You thrash carelessly through the field, listening to the satisfying snap of the stalks beneath your body. You barrel to the finish, the far side of the cornfield, the side closest to the pond, and he is waiting, scratching his head and yawning. He is all youth, all muscles beneath a tired basketball jersey. He turns, scowling at you. You run, leaping onto him, knowing he will catch you, and he gives you a piggy back ride through the tall weeds that he knows scratch and tickle your sensitive legs.
He puts you down on the sheep path. It’s worn down from hooves of flocks that have traveled this road from one meadow to another. A thin wire runs along side you, an electric fence designed to keep the sheep in and the coyotes out. He maliciously grasps the wire so quick you don’t have time to react and an electric current rolls through his body, his arm, his fingertips, to yours, shaking your body. Everything stops in that moment. The moonlight dips beneath a cloud and the earth disappears beneath your feet. All you can feel is the rhythmic pulsing swell of the electricity coursing through your veins. You rip your hand from his and raggedly gasp into the night. You feel no pain; just exhilaration and when you bring your eyes to his you both laugh, loud, deep belly laughs that startle the sleeping lambs.

Finally, you come to the pond. Walking around to the rotting wooden dock, you are astounded by fog rolling off the top of the water. The pond is pulling in, inhaling and exhaling. On the far side, the willows are dotted with fireflies and shadows. The bullfrogs are almost deafening, calling to one another throughout the night. For some reason, for no reason at all, you suddenly wonder what they’re calling for.
Risking splinters, you slide out of your sandals and step onto the two by four that serves as a bridge to the old dock. Lying down on your stomach you watch the boy tread precariously over the bending board. He sits down next to you.
The dock feels wet and dewy from the mist. You sit up, swinging your feet over the edge. If you stretch, the apples of your feet just barely skim the skin of the pond. Somewhere, a fish leaps out of the water. You ask the boy about his girlfriend. She’s a nice girl. Kind and giving, almost relentlessly devoted to this boy, this soon-to-be-man, your best friend, your experimental lover. He tells you, with complete and utter sincerity, that he will leave her for you. You roll your eyes. You have heard this before; you will hear it again before the summer is through. Years later, you will learn the two have wed and are expecting their first child. You will not be surprised. In fact, you will think that you knew it must be this way all along.
Silence falls around you. It is a quiet, comfortable lapse in speech. You both listen to the sounds of the pond, to the coyotes howling from a distance. Somewhere you hear a dog bark, somewhere a lamb calls for its mother.
You break the quiet and ask him about his music. He tells you he wrote a song you might like.
“It’s a love song.” He says, to no one, to the pond. He peers into the willows, deep into the brambles that surround their trunks.
You look at him finally and his eyes meet yours, wet and black and cold. This is the moment where you know you could change your relationship. The weight of this decision rests heavy on your chest, your mind, your heart. You love the boy you rode bikes with and who you came to hate for a year in sixth grade. You have a friendship bonded in dirt and games and competition and adoration. He has a scar on the back of his neck from when you scratched him in a fight. When you were thirteen you bullied him into giving you your first real kiss and you were both so horrified at the clunking braces and intrusive tongues that you couldn’t kiss anyone for almost a year. All of this long and wonderful past is written in his brown eyes. Etched in between his pupils and the specks of black in his irises. You belong to each other in this past. Looking deeper into his eyes now, all you can see is a future that is not yours to keep. Before he can say anything, you stand up shakily and dive into the pond- cutting it clean and crisp. When you surface, he’s smiling at you.
The water is cozy and comforting on top, heated by the warmth the sun lent to the pond for the evening. Beneath, somewhere around your knees, the temperature is icy cold. You try to tread as close to the surface as possible. He doesn’t jump after you, despite your pleas, and you eventually climb up the dock, dripping and trying to avoid the water spiders that nest in the crevices you’re sinking your hands and feet into. You shiver wet, sweatshirt and shorts clinging desperately, weighing you down, intensifying the night’s chill. Home, he says, a statement more than a question and you wordlessly walk back the way you came.
You take the straight route this time. You forget your sandals at the pond and are walking barefoot, leaving muddy footprints in the night. You hold his hand, your sweatshirt dripping beads onto his brown skin. The path parts and you say goodnight, without voices, without sound. You embrace, despite the cold, wet of your body, and he kisses you, just once, so light you can choose to ignore it and you do.
You part, never looking back, and you are alone for the first time. You wind your way back up the hill, through the weeds, wincing when your feet hit sharp stones or pricker bushes. Back, further still, to the house on the hill, your house, your home, up the hill, back over the redbrick patio, and in the door you unlocked for yourself. In the basement, you are comforted by the house sounds. The welcome snoring of your dog, the shudder of air conditioning, a creak here and there, the house settling. You strip off your wet clothes, setting them in a deep-basined sink.
You weave, naked through the house, tip-toeing against time. The grandfather clock rings midnight as you pass, startling you. Your hair lets loose beads of pond water, the beads forming tear drops down your back and legs, and eventually the cold brown ceramic of the kitchen tile. You creep carefully, past the dog, up the stairs, past your sleeping brother’s room, and into your own.
When the door is closed, you wrap a towel around your hair, and climb into your bed, pulling the down comforter that you sleep with (even in the summer) up to your chin. You almost instantly fall asleep. Deep, dark, black sleep. You sleep as though there is nothing waiting, not even your own life to begin.




Ok, that's all for me today, folks. Anticipate some writing samples in the future as I am hoping to do some work while I am here. And yes, one of these days I will incorporate some visuals in this damn thing. xo.