Delights of the Pasture

The first time I walked into the house and saw it, I was sold. Through the windowed-wall of the family room, it was unexpectedly beautiful. A pasture, green with spring growth, the spreading flatland to the far treeline. It took my breath away and I began to imagine waking up every day and seeing that view.

We’ve been living in our new house for almost two months now. Each morning, coffee in hand, I open blinds across the back wall of the family room and take in the view. It is always beautiful. And sometimes God plants extra treasures. Like the time there was a low fog in the distance, just touching the grassline. Or when the butterflies swirled and danced along the wildflowers growing near the fenceline.

Beyond the beauty of the morning, the pasture delights me anytime I look at it. And then there are the cows, the bull and the donkey that lazily wander the pasture in the late evenings, grazing the grass or standing in the pond to cool off. There’s even a coyote who occassionally appears in the distance, passing through the grass, moving behind the tree and off to wherever he is going. The other animals don’t seem to notice him.

I grew up in a town, and while not rural, it was a slow, southern town with tall oak trees, bayous, yards filled with beautiful azaleas and daylillies. As an adult, I’ve lived in wonderful suburban neighborhoods near big cities, travelled interstate highways to go to work or shop, yet I’ve never considered myself a “city girl.” My near-obsession with this pasture has caused me to rethink that self-assessment. My husband, who grew up on a Tennessee dairy farm, is amused by my new interest in cows and donkeys.

Our new home is in a city with interstate highways, two universities and a town square with a beautiful old courthouse. Purely by luck, we found this slice of country, with land, sky, trees, wildflowers and farm animals that we can enjoy through our back windows or by walking up to the low fence in our back yard. It’s an amazing blessing in an otherwise hurry-up, horn-honking, non-stop-thoughts kind of life that we have.

I think I’ll get another cup of coffee and mindlessly gaze out at the pasture for a while.

Adding in some blueberries

My grandmother loved her oatmeal. I would watch as she stirred in lots of sugar and milk until it had a creamy texture that was thick enough to stay on a spoon but not too thick. That’s the way my mom fixed it, too, and the way I have always done it….until now. Enter blueberries. I’ve been eating them on cereal for a long time but I never put them on cereal. After all there was a tried and true family formula for oatmeal and I never questioned it. But one morning, I was getting the milk for my oatmeal out of the refrigerator when I saw them. They needed to be used. It occurred to me to put them on my oatmeal but then told myself that wouldn’t be right. I had never done that before and that wasn’t the way my family did it. I got them out of the refrigerator, still not sure but opening my mind to the idea as I finished making my oatmeal, stirring it to a consistency that my grandmother would have been proud of. Then I did it. I added in a handful of blueberries, mixing them in so that they were part of the oatmeal. And you know what? The combination was delicious! So delicious, that I have done it many mornings since. What would my grandmother say about that? Why do I even care? It’s MY oatmeal and my choice to eat blueberries, or anything else for that matter, with my oatmeal.

Change, no matter how minor, can be a big thing. Often, as with the blueberries in the oatmeal, it defies a time-honored family practice or it goes against what others have in mind for you. The decision to change is often an emotional one going deeper than what is good for me and extending to how will it affect others or more likely how will it affect others’ opinion of me. If you’ve ever changed the way something has been done, you know it takes some courage. You may hear opposition. But do it once and you’ll realize that you CAN change. It’s empowering to know that you have a choice, even in something as unimportant as putting blueberries on your oatmeal.

Introduction to “Reaching for Cloud 9″

My fifth grade teacher was into motivation and behavior modification. Each day she drew the outline of a big white cloud on the chalk board and right in the center of that cloud was the numeral “9.” As she explained to us at the first of the school year, she would be on “Cloud 9″ when we made good grades, didn’t talk when someone else was talking (especially when SHE was talking) and when we played nicely on the playground at recess. Each day, Mrs. Davis would write in the cloud the names of several proud students who had been exemplary in meeting her expectations while the rest of us glared at the do-gooders.

As fifth graders go, we were pretty easy to manipulate. When the class noise level was increasing, all she had to do was go up to the chalk board and point her finger at the cloud. As we were about to take a test, she would saunter over to the board and look lovingly at that number 9. It was corny but it worked. We all wanted her to be on Cloud 9 because it meant we had made her happy and even 10 year olds know when someone else is happy it tends to benefit you as well.

During the year, there were a couple of times when I was in the Cloud 9 group, but that was also the year that “Talks Too Much” was checked on my six weeks report card more often than not. Mrs. Davis had to look for another way to get my name into that cloud and I began to look for other ways to make her happy. Like volunteering to clean the erasers. Or taking the lunch money down to the cafeteria. And because I am a good reader, I was first to raise my hand to read out loud from the textbook.

So we both focused on my strengths and positive traits so I could get my name on the board and my teacher could be on “Cloud 9.” But the funny thing is that by focusing on doing things that brought her happiness, my parents were delighted in the changes I’d made and I was happier. By making some little adjustments in my thinking and behavior, it affected other people.

The lesson of Cloud 9 is that happiness can be found in little things. As we open up, look for opportunities to be grateful, share meaningful ideas and moments with others, that cloud can have all of our names inside of it. I don’t remember who my best friend was in fifth grade or if I even had one, but I vividly remember the feeling of well-being when Mrs. Davis wrote “Verone” in her chalkboard cloud.