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This is the road to our new farmhouse. There are no guard rails, or pavement beneath your wheels. It’s a hard road to travel. You can’t speed down it even if you want to, but there are things to discover along the way. And something beautiful at the end.
Many of the people down this road pass in and out of our lives. The road is scattered with weekend cabins. They come in the fall with their orange coats and their deer rifles. They come in the summer with their ATVs and their beer. If you wait long enough, they’ll go away.
The handful of people who stick around for the isolating snows of winter and the pounding rains of spring are an optimistic bunch. They put out mailboxes at the ends of their driveways as an affirmation to the universe that someday the post office will deliver mail down this road. They know anything is possible if you believe. Even mail.
There’s trouble in the road. Don’t be scared by the first creek. The creeks get bigger. Keep going. You’re not going to drown. Don’t forget to look around. You might see a black bear or a wild turkey. Or maybe the first sweet pea leaning its pretty bloom over a fence post.
Some people want to stop at the second creek. But you can’t turn around. There’s no place to go but forward. Do you see a bunch of abandoned vehicles? People have gone down this road before you and they made it.
Sometimes the road is generous and offers you a bridge. It’s made of wood and it clacks when you drive over it, but it will support you. Look around and see the foundation stones of the old gasoline plant that employed 50 men a century ago in the gas and oil heyday of this now-deserted area. They didn’t have cars. They had to walk this road every day.
The last creek is the biggest. Flash floods can make it temporarily impassable, but if you just wait a little while, the water will go down. If you can get past this one last obstacle, there are better things ahead.
Maybe even a brand new almost-finished farmhouse.
Sometimes life is just that way.
Posted by Suzanne McMinn | Permalink
