Memories Past and Present

I have vague recollections of visiting a farm as a child. Probably must have been through a relative on my mom's side of the family.  I can remember standing in front of the combine set with a corn header and feeling very intimidated by the large spikes, and just the sheer size of the machine.  I can remember being in the buddy seat with someone else in the captain's chair, probably an uncle.  

These memories have resurfaced in my mind recently as I have been in the buddy seat on our own combine.  How interesting, I think, that farming should be part of my history.  If anyone had told me five years ago that I would fall in love with a farmer and live in northern Montana, I would have been shocked, but now I feel somehow that I have come full circle.  Today, we took it a step further-- I learned to drive the combine.  No longer needing to be in the buddy-seat.

I can also remember as a kid the ride home from my grandparents' house at night on the two-lane roads.  Looking out the window, and up at the stars. They are so bright in the country.  I can remember that feeling of awe and smallness anyone gets looking at the stars and seeing the bright belt of the Milky Way above.  Yard lights from the surrounding farms closer to the ground gave the impression that the stars were all around me; I was among the stars.

Now, as I drive through the countryside near our farm, on gravel roads the stars are still above and the Milky Way is just as bright.  This time of year it is not only yard lights but headlights on combines in the field and their accompanying grain trucks that make me feel like I am among the stars. It's like walking through the woods on a cloudless night with fireflies all around.  The rational side of my brain knows that the stars are far away in the sky and the lights down here on the ground are man made and mechanical.  The imaginative side of my brain marvels at the magic of feeling like I'm floating in space.