A time in place

I’ve never been just the way I am so it would be hard to know if you loved me that way,

but I’ve never been closer than now

A place in time where I can let myself be

Here in the land where the hills have patchwork quilts pulled over bellies of Cornish Pastys, where like hermit crabs changing shells the onward chain must be established before we scurry our tender hearts from one place to the next

Where hearths cook the same food over the same pots as they did before all those modern conveniences of which so many conveniently feel so unnecessary here

It is something else to live in a place far older than anyone alive to remember it, a culture so deep you have to trust the wisdom in it,

Let us keep the stove with no dial and the paths carved high to the sides by centuries steps, and skips, and hops

They don’t tell you this when you are growing up

But whimsy has never been for free

It is the sacred obligation of those dedicated to keep the magic of the world alive

Let’s all have a great time at the Fayre where we will pillow fight our friends perched on greasy poles and try our hand at a dozen games we are not all that good at, and cheer ravenously for the neighborhood dogs while they race after a bit of fur pulled by a tractor winch

Nowhere to be seen is a sign with bright flashing lights telling you how fun it is to jump into the sea, or fling a bail of hay, traded for a man in a Panama hat sitting on that tractor calling himself handsome and telling you the name of dans dog Austin who is just as pleased to swim along in the evening as he is to chase a rabbit

Where being good to someone is more important than being good at something,

Where you can’t help but fall in love with the path so winding you can tell its priorities were never to get you there fast, rather to let you slow down enough to glimpse the wonder around every bend