A Sunday Morning Walk Down Memory Lane.....

In childhood, we press our nose to the pane,

 looking out.

  In memories of childhood, we press our nose to the pane,

looking in. 

~Robert Brault

This weekend was my father's seventieth birthday and so I traveled to the little town where I spent my childhood and teenage years to visit and celebrate. 

My parents still live in the small town and not much  has changed since I lived there twenty-something years ago.

 A flashing red light  still flashes at the first intersection one sees when exiting the highway slowing down the pace of life as one enters the town.

The little mom and pop restaurant, the Dixie Pan, still sits over to the right but there is now a Dollar General sitting next to it.  The intersection with the light flashing is now dotted with  convience stores where the locals purchase bread, fried chicken and emergency gallons of milk. 

My sister came from Alabama with her family and my brother who lives down the street all gathered to celebrate the occasion.  We laughed and visited and really didn't even get on each others nerves which can be a miracle in itself when a bunch of folks gather together in the same room.  The kids went to see Harry Potter in the next town over and after the celebration we all sat around full and content and tired. 

This morning while the dew was still wet on the grass, I went for a morning stroll down the road where I spent days of my teenage years.  The trees that were planted in the yard when we first moved there were now taller than the house and rose bushes almost as tall as me.  It was a quiet morning, but that is not atypical in the little sleepy town.  I walked down the country lane, around the bend in the road all the while taking in the silence of the day.  The sun was shining brightly but the dew of the grass cooled my feet as it soaked through my shoes.  Wild flowers graced the fields along the way and all was quiet and serene.  I never thought I'd say it but I sometimes miss the slow paced life where cornfields pop up and coal mines scatter the horizon.  As I walked, the train ran along the tracks, taking me back to the nights I'd lie awake with the windows open and hear the sound of the whistle and rattle of the tracks as engines and cars ran through the town from some unknown place heading to some other place far from me.  I found the sound comforting in a sense, almost like the heart beat in the womb, a familiar sound of home.  The beauty shop still sat on the little corner in front of the tracks. I'm quite sure it is probably still the center of the town gossip--if you want to know something, somebody there always is in the "know".  Tomb stones covered in "permanent plastic flowers" dotted the hill across from the Baptist church.  I walked and reflected and watched dragonflies and grasshoppers and butterfies dart from flower to flower and for a moment I almost forgot that I was now supposed to be all "grown up" as the rush of days gone by caught up to the rhythem of my walk.   The humid breeze caused my skin to become moist with perspiration but I kept walking and remembering.

Sunday Morning Reflections of days gone by,

sights and sounds and smells

of another time in another place

a sacred reflective time,

which filled my heart up to the brim

with love and joy and fullness.

I am thankful for a family visit,

for a birthday celebration,

for

country lanes that invite sacred Sunday reflections

and

for

all the places I've gone,

all the things I've done,

but

none

fills my heart

like

A Sunday Morning Walk

down Memory lane.

Wishing all of you a Serene Sunday....

Blessings and Hugs...