A Breath of Sweet Madison Co.
I love where I live.
On a hot afternoon back in July, I was driving through the curvy country roads of Madison County, deep in Western North Carolina. It was a Tuesday evening; the time of the week when we all emerge from our various hollers spread out across the county, meandering through the valleys, to catch up with our dearest friends and sit in for a few songs of the old time jam in a small downtown Marshall pub that we all lovingly refer to as our ‘living room.”
The thermometer on my dashboard read 89º, though it felt a good ten degrees hotter. Sweat was glistening on my forehead, but it was too nice an evening to not have the windows down. The hot air filled my car of the calming scents of freshly bailed hay and warm, rich earth. Marty Robbins was playing on the radio over the sound of the rushing air past my open windows as I drove along the winding back roads of the rural landscape.
Up ahead on the road, stretched a 3’ long (at least), very healthy black Rat Snake, taking its time to lazily cross the well-heated pavement. I pulled over and gently escorted him off the road in the direction he was headed, just in time for an old Ford truck to round the bend and fly past us. After watching the tail of the freshly shed snake slither off into the overgrown grass, I walked back to my car as an Indigo Bunting flitted across my path, in high pursuit of a summer evening bug. Bug and bird both, one with the other right behind, quickly disappeared into the tall Queen Ann’s Lace and Chicory, though my eyes continued to travel as if they had kept flying. And this was the view that I looked over to see.
Stunning.
Still and hot.
Just the summer bugs darting here and there. Staccato chirps of birds whistled out from the thickets, accompanied by an occasional low moo from the cows in the golden and green rolling meadow behind me. The warm smell of hay and earth lofted heavy in the July air. I breathed in a few good deep breaths and smiled. It feels good to finally feel at home in this world.
