BACK HOME IN EAST TENNESSEE
LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH
The lyrics "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with....." run through my mind as we settle into being home in East Tennessee for the winter. My heart yearns for Europe, the Mediterranean and other far flung places, but reality insists that we stay home with our "Puty" (our grey cat, Shadow, who has huge florescent green eyes) until spring. Therefore, I am taking those words from the Crosby, Stills & Nash song to heart and I'm focusing on falling back in love with the old State of Franklin, where the Scots-Irish planted roots over two centuries ago and then planted the seeds of a new country.
We took a leisurely drive in the countryside today, just to remind ourselves how beautiful this part of Tennessee really is. Rolling hillsides were plowed under for the winter, rolls of hay lay in tidy rows and herds of lazy cows gathered to munch on them. Silos stood tall against the cold grey sky and red barns held quiet tractors, put away for the winter, but waiting patiently for the activity of spring to come once again. This is horse country also, and the sleek graceful delicate-legged animals viewed us calmly with their beautiful long lashed eyes as we admired the variety of breeds that can be seen inside the white-fenced pastures.
All in all, East Tennessee is pretty spectacular on the scale of breath-taking places. It is a mild place, not quite Southern and not quite Northern, where it snows just enough for kids to sled and build snowmen for a few weeks and to drape the pines and house eves with white layers of drifting snow in fairy-tale style. We have had a light snow, but it melted fast, so we wait for more that is sure to come. Even so, underneath the cold quiet of winter, one senses the verdant green sprouts just waiting to burst out in April.
So, this expat in Tennessee will be putting away my love for other far places for the winter, to concentrate on what is right in front of me. Join Jim and I in checking out our own back-yard for a while!
We took a leisurely drive in the countryside today, just to remind ourselves how beautiful this part of Tennessee really is. Rolling hillsides were plowed under for the winter, rolls of hay lay in tidy rows and herds of lazy cows gathered to munch on them. Silos stood tall against the cold grey sky and red barns held quiet tractors, put away for the winter, but waiting patiently for the activity of spring to come once again. This is horse country also, and the sleek graceful delicate-legged animals viewed us calmly with their beautiful long lashed eyes as we admired the variety of breeds that can be seen inside the white-fenced pastures.
All in all, East Tennessee is pretty spectacular on the scale of breath-taking places. It is a mild place, not quite Southern and not quite Northern, where it snows just enough for kids to sled and build snowmen for a few weeks and to drape the pines and house eves with white layers of drifting snow in fairy-tale style. We have had a light snow, but it melted fast, so we wait for more that is sure to come. Even so, underneath the cold quiet of winter, one senses the verdant green sprouts just waiting to burst out in April.
So, this expat in Tennessee will be putting away my love for other far places for the winter, to concentrate on what is right in front of me. Join Jim and I in checking out our own back-yard for a while!