Dreaming the World

After a day of rain we awoke to cool breezes and cloud. Everywhere we went yesterday people were quietly enjoying the rain. There were no complaints, just a sense of shared relief.

We went to Quaker meeting for the first time in quite a while yesterday. We all sat in silence for most of the hour, the rain on the roof the only sound. At one point a member rose and urged us to act in the world; he reminded us that Friends have always stood against tyranny and harm. Looking around the room I was reminded that we are an aging group, and I wonder what will become of the meeting if we are unable to add younger members.

Here on the coast the foliage is still predominantly green but reds and yellows are definitely gaining. I imagine the chill of the past couple of weeks has begun to influence the leaf change and the brief rains have reduced the browning and dropping; the landscape no longer looks parched but the gardens are pretty much done.

We have been visiting local orchards and enjoying the bounty of the harvest. We are probably getting near the end of the peach season. It seems to me that this year we have had peaches for an extended time and they have been exquisitely tasty. This morning we enjoyed peach pie and yogurt for breakfast, relishing the results of someone else’s labours.

Saturday morning we went to a nearby Apple and Peach Festival. The community in which it is held is an old farming community, famous for its orchards. Like many rural communities, it is economically stressed and supported the president in last year’s elections. The farmers are aging and the kids don’t want to farm., so orchards are being replaced by houses. There is a sense of sadness and loss amongst the older residents.

Driving through the rural landscape we could easily have been in rural Vermont or upstate New York. The people are friendly and concerned about the fate of their communities. They share a sense that they have been forgotten, or abandoned, by politicians and those with advanced educations and relative wealth.

The festival is small and distinctly local, and I was reminded of events in my rural Illinois childhood and my young adult ranching days. Everything from the music on stage to the peach cobbler was homespun, most folks seemed to know each other.

There is something broadly warming about knowing the kids raising the winning cows at the fair, or when the rodeo clowns are your neighbours. There is an ease to sitting with friends and neighbours, surrounded by a familiar landscape, repeating traditions that your grandparents participated in.

For some reason, attending the festival I was reminded of the village I lived in as a child in rural Lincolnshire, England. From the village it was usually easier to get to the market town, Boston, than to the neighbouring villages. Perhaps the isolation contributed to the strong sense of community. Certainly the fact that most of the men in the village had been killed in the war was a factor

Ancient, hedgerow-lined trails connected villages so that the next village was a relatively short walk instead of a long drive. Sometimes life could feel way to cloistered in isolated communities, and I was told that many romances and conceptions took place in those sheltered passageways. Soon after we moved away many of the hedgerows were destroyed to enlarge fields, people began to own autos, and the isolation gave way to inclusion in a vastly changed world.