Fresh Eyes
We had a family get-together at the ranch this weekend so both of my kids and their families were here. It was the first time since January my daughter had been here. Where she lives they of the ranch roads are growing up so much they are hard to follow. Flowers are everywhere! The grasses are up to head high in many places. Of course the mesquites and prickly pear are sprouting up strong and healthy so my husband is planning an intense brush-control season starting very soon.
A long while back, I would walk nearly every day on the ranch, three to four miles at a time. I stopped when my dog, Rosie, got too sick to go with me and just never started again. Now I am feeling downright guilty for letting that habit slip away. We have always talked about how inheriting a place like this is like inheriting an elder family member to love, care for, and pass on to the next generation. Staying right here around the house is neglectful—of the ranch and of my physical, mental, and spiritual health. I spent a lot of those walks talking to God, mostly about how have just now started getting some rain after a very long and very severe drought, so she was really taken with the lush, green vegetation and all the flowers here. Her comments on various things around the ranch kind of woke me up and made me take a look around with fresh eyes.
I think I have been too focused on work and other such things to really be aware of my surroundings. I have not been totally oblivious—I have been enjoying the hummingbirds and saw the first painted bunting of the season on Friday. I have been enjoying the bluebonnets down by the gate, the prairie verbena along the ranch roads, and the fields full of lazy daisies. But seeing my home through my daughter’s eyes made me sit up and take notice.
Yesterday my husband and I did a UTV ranch tour for the first time in a very long time. It has been so long that some grateful I am.
Today brought more “out and about” than I normally do in a week’s time, which is to say I went to Brownwood and Early this morning then to San Saba this afternoon. I was reminded again how wonderful it is to live somewhere like this, where the biggest city I regularly visit has a population under 25,000. It took me maybe fifteen minutes to drive from the hospital area to a place way out the other side of Early, and I only had to deal with one rude driver.
Yes, there are bad things that happen and bad people here and everywhere. There are tragedies that happen here and everywhere. But we have a mostly good place here filled with mostly good people, and that is a gift.
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