Thursday Thirteen

Things I Love About Living Where I Live

1. The way the mountains hold the horizon, always steady, familiar, and never showy. They're just there like an old friend.

2.  Mornings shaped by cattle sounds drifting in from the fields, grounding the day before anything else can intrude.

3.  The particular winter quiet that settles over the valley, softening everything to a gentler pace, especially during a snowfall.

4. How the light changes room by room as the day moves, turning the house into a sundial of small comforts.

5. The sense of lineage in the land, because I know generations of my kin have walked, worked, and tended these same ridges.

6. The simple little hand lift from the steering wheel the neighbors do from their cars and trucks, even if you don’t know their names, because that’s just what you do here.

7. The smell of woodsmoke in cold weather, a kind of unofficial county perfume.

8. The rhythm of seasons that actually feel like seasons, each one with its own rituals and chores.

9.  The night sky that still remembers how to be dark, full of stars you can actually see.

10.  The comfort of familiar roads, winding and imperfect, but always leading home.

11. The small-town kindnesses like holding open doors, leaving extra tomatoes and zucchini at the back door, and knowing that we look out for each other.

12. The way history lingers quietly, not as spectacle but as lived memory in buildings, fields, and local stories.

13. The feeling of being rooted, not stuck, because this place knows you, and you know it back.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 944th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.