Soft Light & Cookie Monsters

It is bizarre how the slightest scent, touch or sound can transport you back. Mine, is seeing dew on the grass...Here's where I go.

As a kid of around 5, I was pretty freakin independent when it came to mornings. I was usually up with the sun in summertime, long before my older siblings stumbled, actually stumbling, out of bed. The house was quiet, only some gently snoring from my parents’ bedroom broke the silence of our little, crowded house, maybe a rooster crowing in the distance. An no, they don’t only crow in the mornings, they crow ALL…DAY…LONG. Something to think about for you future urban farmers.

I’d pull a kitchen chair over to the counter, climb up and open the top cupboard where the grains and cereals were kept. Grab a box of Cheerios or whatever white-box generic we had at the time. Slide the chair over to the cupboard next door and repeat the process for a bowl and proceed to make myself a marvelous bowl of cereal.

Then, the next 15-30 minutes were heaven. It was just me, in front of our tv, I mean literally in front of it, I’d sir so damn close, and morning kid shows. Usually Sesame Street, of course. My devotion time in the morning was listening to the incredibly wise blue and yellow and green (and sometimes grumpy) monsters and animals teaching me about kindness, compassion, difference, and of course the letters T and R (among others). I think of this as my early morning meditation now where I still try to get back to compassion, empathy and embracing difference. Oh the simple lessons of monsters and cereal.

At some point long after my bowl was gone and I slurped up the milk soup like a hungry orphan cast in Oliver!, it was time to throw on jeans, no shoes of course, a threadbare t-shirt and head outside, there were baby animals at any given moment on our property, somewhere.

The light at this time of day, in a deep rural setting, is enchanting. Everything is diamond studded for about 30 minutes each day. The insects are starting to stir, there’s not background noise of cars or machinery, it’s just me, the still air, and those glistening dew drops.

My favorite as a kid was the corn wash. Tall rows of grown corn stalks, all green and fresh like vegetable rows of soldiers waiting in the slanted sunlight. I’d line up at one end of the 1/2 acre or so of corn and charge through. The dew splashed everywhere, droplets flying in the light, a scent of green, and dirt and wet going through my nose, and by the time I emerged giggling from the other side I was wet from head to toe. Now you see why I didn’t wear shoes. Wet shoes, on a farm? No ma’am.

By this time my full day of sun, chores, animals and exploration lay ahead. And tomorrow, the monsters and cereal would be there for me again, and so would those beautiful diamond dew, ready to shower me again for a new day’s start. I hope I get to run through that dew again soon, I miss it.