When I was growing up, out on an acreage surrounded by the green fields of early summer and the thick jungle of poplars, wild rose and honeysuckle in my backyard, I was certain that I lived in the prettiest place in the world. The overwhelming beauty of the land made me cry and I spent hours alone, wandering through the trees, writing terrible poetry, imagining the enchanted life I would live when I grew-up and left my childhood behind. Those were my beautiful summers.

In the autumn, in the time between turning leaves and hoar frost, were the terrible weeks of brown stubble, naked trees and grey skies. I hated and dreaded those times of the year. The land was ugly and dead, waiting for the snow to cover up its embarrassing uselessness.

Something has turned within me.

It started with the old pictures that I found when I was unpacking - me as a newborn in my baptismal gown, my sister as a two year old, my parents in their late twenties, summer holidays as a toddler, life as a child. I looked at the pictures and part of my heart settled into place a little. It felt a bit like finding an anchor again. Not because I think of my childhood as beautiful and safe, it was not, but because I felt tied to a history, and an existence, and an identity. I was baptized. I was fed. I was bathed. I was poured into. I became who I am in the accumulation of those moments.

I covered my fridge with the pictures.

And then, a few weeks ago as I drove to work I looked out at the black, newly tilled fields, the stark bare trees and the grey October sky and all in one moment, as it sometimes happens, I fell in love. I felt such a bond to the history of the land that I grew up in. This crazy soil that ties people's lives to it, that blesses and destroys in alternating years. I fell in love with the muted nakedness of it at that moment, all vast and vulnerable as it was. I felt my heart, my endlessly restless heart, give another little shudder and settle into place a tiny bit more as I took the land for what it was.

I feel shy and embarrassed about these feelings. Who falls in love with "The Land" nowadays? Who sees it as a holder of the stories of the lives that it has supported? As a source of safety to be anchored to? It is an outdated cliché, I know.
That same day, I taught social studies to a group of grade eight students and we talked about their connections to the land surrounding them. I asked which of them had farmers as their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and over half of the class raised their hand. Once, we lived so aware of our dependence, so aware of our need and vulnerability.

Something has turned within me. I once saw the land as a pretty decoration and it moved me. Now, I belong to it. It was poured into me until it became a part of who I am. I am pulled to it, held by it, defined by it. I am vulnerable browns and greys, stark and naked, holding my history, anchored in a past of accumulated moments .