Soul Food Friday

"This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven. This is a place where the song 'Jesus Loves Me' has rocked generations to sleep, and heaven is not a concept, but a destination." ~Rick Bragg

My friend Almost Gypsy Soul has started a brand new link up called Soul Food Friday.  At first, I thought we'd be blogging about our favorite soul foods (for the record, I'd pick macaroni and cheese and hoe cakes ala Ski Trip Jerry), but turns out the idea is to blog about something that feeds your soul.  Whatever it is that motivates you or makes you excited about life or soothes the soul.


So for this very first Soul Food Friday, I've decided to blog about my favorite place.  Home.  There is nowhere in the world that I like better. 

I know that it's in the middle of nowhere, that it's dry and dusty and don't even get me started on the wind.  There's no Wal-Mart within 90 miles, you can't buy bagels here, and you can't even learn to drive in my hometown because there are no stop lights at which to practice.  But there are so many things that we have that you can't find other places.

You won't find better people--they don't just know the definition of neighbor and family--they live it.  And in other places you won't find a tree row planted by my dad, uncle and grandpa.  You won't find the remnants of the manure pile where we played king of the mountain, the irrigation ditches where we swam as little kids, or see the old evergreen that held our childhood tree house.  Other places don't have the perfect spot to watch the Fourth of July fireworks over the lake, or the pasture where we must have walked 10 years worth of pigs 500 miles, or the windmill with the sweetest water.  Nowhere holds the sidewalk where I broke my tailbone or the lane where I busted my nose, or the hay field where Little Brother and I cut hay with broken hearts the day after my grandma died. 

There is nowhere else in the world that can feed--and heal--my soul like home.