Memory of a Photograph (written March 19 2019)

In this one you are about 20 years old.  You are holding a large floppy hat, your hair is blown from the wind, you have a smile that lights up your face, it is summer, but not in the middle of summer, as the grass hasn’t started browning from days of relentless heat.  You are wearing shorts and a long sleeved shirt, so I am pretty sure you have just come from the field.  There is a dog standing beside you and the large tree that holds the rope swing is so small.  You can just make out the entrace to the root cellar/tornado shelter behind you and then in the background you can make out the larger barn and the smaller sheds - everything is painted in the brighter blue.  I often wonder who took the photograph.  I am guessing it was grandpa - he was always the photographer.  I also am curious if you are pregnant with mom in the picture or not - but your face is not lined with the ups and downs of life with its hardship, grief, adventure, pain, happiness, love, and strength. It is one of my most favorite pictures of you - in stark contrast to later pictures of you - with a smile that is expected or forced.  Though you laugh a lot in your older age, you definitely could control a situation and not be transparent - but this photo seems to show you - all of you - complicated you - free and untethered - though I know you are married in the photograph - because of where you are - on the farm.  I know that while you are standing in front of the main house - you live with grandpa in the little white house.  You help him with the fields as he was the youngest and the one child to take over his father’s farm - with all of the ideas he had about how to make money.  Your husband has bigger dreams but realizes that he must stay and work the fields and support his family because while he is very young and still could do anything and go anywhere, his parents are old - they need someone to help, the other siblings have left to be a doctor, a psychiatrist, a salesman, a nanny, and a wanderer - his sister comes and goes and grandpa is left.  You were ahead of your time - you graduated from high school early and immediately to went to business school.  You wanted to have something to fall back on - in case.  Grandpa drove that distance while you were dating  - from home to the big city, and to the big city and back in time for morning chores.  People thought you were too young to think about marriage - especially since you were in business school - your father thought maybe you should work for awhile before deciding to marry.  Grandpa’s parents were worried that you would break his heart.  They did not realize how much you loved him - so quickly and right away.  You loved the idea of living off the land as you did growing up.  You loved the safety of being in a place where you knew everyone and everyone knew you.  Time seems to stand still in this place - where you can walk outside and hear the evening song of cicadas and crickets and frogs - where the ground moves in the grasshopper season - those twinkling lights of the lightening bugs - that light up as dusk falls - walking to the edge of the cornfield and feeling like you can reach up and grab any one of those billions of stars that light up the sky - feeling so close and yet so far away.  Walking hand in hand with the man who makes you laugh, wipes your tears, has dreams that reach beyond this farm and this space - but has a way of bringing those adventures to you.  Holding home for the traveler and living vicariously through friends and family as they pass through, sitting around the small kitchen table - brewing another pot of coffee - asking if anyone would like just one more yummy bar - and waking up regardless of when people finally went to bed - to sit around that kitchen table and talk about the business of the farm and what will come next - what and where to plant and which customers will make payment or need to have more time...

PLEASE NOTE - this essay was written without the photograph in front of me - I was remembering the photograph (and not well I might add).