-Trails that lead into the woods, dusty boots and tired legs.

-Old women who pat me with soft, wrinkled hands, and call me “Baby”.

-Old men in diners, drinking coffee and laughing real loud, telling stories, mostly lies.

-BBQ joints in cinder block buildings that that have been there for generations.

-Quilts, especially old ones, made with scraps of someone’s clothes.

-Old friends.

-New friends.

-A good story.

-Old cemeteries, silent and full of stories I will never know.

-Bare branches that look black against a winter sky.

-Libraries and second hand Book Stores, and all the possibilities that lie within.

-Birds, all the birds. And chickens, love chickens…but am leery of roosters.

-Old pictures, with writing on the back from people who are no longer here.

-The sound of a running creek or waterfall, a camp fire, of wind in the trees and rain.

-The first morning a Wood Thrush’s song wakes me up in the woods behind my house, and I know Spring is coming.

-A table set for company, and the moment just before they come.

-The smell of bacon and coffee and old books and wisteria and my Mother’s house and fall leaves and a freshly turned garden, ready for planting.

-Red dirt and shiny green leaves of Magnolia trees.

-The sound of thousands of Sandhill Cranes and the gray cloud they form in the sky.

-Porches, especially with porch swings, full of people I love, their conversation and laughter, like a wave, like music.

-Going somewhere I’ve never been before.

-Going places I know well.

-Home.

-The old blue glider on the porch of the “old home place”, and the picture I have of my boys in it when they were little.

-Being wide awake in the middle of my life and remembering to pay attention. This moment.

-Then.

-Now.