Saturday, August 27, 2011

Beauty

This is where I am from.  How beautiful is this?


I was looking around online, and it always amazes me when I can find something on the world wide web that originates in little Newport Virginia (that is NOT Newport News, thankyouverymuch), because the whole area seems to be straight out of the 1800's.

I found this website:  Windrush Farm.  This is literally less than a mile from where I grew up.  I was raised in the house that my father built for me to grow up in, built right next door to his sister and the place where he grew up.

To say that I did not appreciate the beauty of this area during my childhood would be such an understatement.  I was right there living next to that mountain, listening to Adam and the Ants and the Dead Kennedys and reading Anne Rice and dreaming of living in a real place, a place with public transportation and tall buildings and culture.

I suppose most teenagers are fairly stupid.

Now with the perspective of decades of distance I look at photos of the wondrous beauty of the Appalachian mountains and it just makes me ache with homesickness.  I like where I am now and I really don't want to move back, but it feels like a sizable chunk of my heart is there, and always will be.