Land in my Blood

As I've remarked before, I'm a reasonably intelligent, certainly well-educated woman. Yet, I can still be pretty slow at times.

A couple weeks ago, after dropping my daughter off at school in the morning, I noticed that the moon was still visible. A full moon, huge, low on the horizon in the west, right in front of my face every time the car turned that direction. It was positively mesmerizing. I mentioned it to hubby when I got home, and he said, "Well, sun's about to rise in the east . . . full moon to the west . . . that makes sense."

This morning, the moon was visible again on my drive back home, but this time in the south and this time just kind of a sliver. But I remembered my husband's previous comment, and suddenly the wheels started churning. Full moon in the west . . . sun rising in the east . . . moon reflects the sunlight . . . sliver moon in the south . . . sun shines on only one side . . . whoa!!

Yes, I'm 43 years old and I just figured out the whole moon cycle business. Don't judge me. I just don't ponder this stuff very much. I have little need to. I'm very much an indoor gal.

Not that I want to be that. Sometimes I wish I'd been born a farmgirl. I'd like to be more in touch with nature and the land and the seasons and so forth. Somehow it feels like I'm lacking something in my psyche when I struggle with even keeping a houseplant alive.

I wonder if it's too late to change that? I wonder if I could learn, in my ripe old middle-age, to keep a vegetable garden, recognize the constellations, identify various types of grasses, and predict the weather by looking at the clouds. I can already feel a tornado coming -- I think that comes with growing up in Kansas, even in the city.

I come from a long line of farmers. The land is in my blood, eh? I should be able to do this, right?

But wait -- this would require spending time outside. Never mind.