Resurfacing.

Last week we were in Virginia.

The Mother Land.

My state of birth.

The birth state of four of our six children.

And she was beautiful.

I know I will be dissecting last week for many posts

and tossing out photos like candy on Halloween.

Or like sparklers on July Fourth.

It was wonderful to see the gang all lined up for our Camp Fourth week.

And it was goodgoodgood to be in a landscape as familiar as the tops of my children’s heads.

I’ve missed that.

The dip and the curves of the back roads that lead to my parents’ former farm and my framily’s current farm.

The willow tree that I bought for my mother the summer before I left for college and is now gigantic.

I love recognizing the landmarks that define a space on this planet that I’ve known since I’ve known how to spell the word “planet”.

That brick building with the boarded up windows?

It’s had a life as a video store back when rental was king.

And then it was a poorly decorated and more poorly managed “convenience” store lacking in one major area- a convenient location.

And it’s right beside that beautiful house that the young couple built right after their wedding but it burned down only a few years later during their unpleasant divorce.

And down the road just half a mile farther by the bending oak tree was the spot where my favorite “heart” hat flew off my head from my unsafe seat in the back of a moving pick up.

And my dad turned the truck around and found it in the ditch for me.

(And that battered old, duct-taped-bill atrocity of a hat lies at the bottom of a trunk in our bedroom still.)

Ah – Virginia.

Where the mail man has been delivering the parcels to the little black mailbox at the dairy barn for the past thirty years.

And he still refers to me as the daughter of my father.

And, to me, he looks just the same as he did when I was ten.

Where you can hug the neck of faithful friends who have known you when and seen you through.

Sweet Virginia.

It was so lovely to breathe your air again.