1. The ground outside my window is speckled. It's a southern hill and still snow-covered, with clumps of grass rising through it.
2. The wind has a frigid feeling about it today.
3. The sunshine is an illusion, because it brings no warmth this afternoon.
4. An animal streaked across my front yard at daybreak, so fast and quick that I could not tell what it was, only that something ran before my eyes.
5. Off in the distance I see a silo glimmering and reflecting light. It almost looks like a lighthouse set amongst the mountains.
6. I have not been to the sea in two years.
7. Some days, like today, my work does not flow well and the strain of writing becomes like the weight of a hundred horses trampling on me, all of them stepping on my heart.
8. My heart sometimes is so breezy that I think it might float from my chest and up into the atmosphere, moving like a hot air balloon on a beautiful crisp fall morning.
9. It has been 30 years since I took a trip out of the United States. Sometimes I think I would like to take another. I would like to see Ireland, England and Scotland, for three.
10. My ancestors hail from Scotland, Ireland and Germany. They were planters, gunsmiths, farmers and millers. At least one fought in the American Revolution; he is buried about four miles down the road in the cemetery at the Fincastle Presbyterian Church.
11. I am at least the seventh generation of my family to live in my county. That's 200 years of my bloodline looking at the same mountains I see, feeling the same winds, smelling the same smells. Two hundred years of loving the same land.
12. I am Appalachian through and through; it is deep in my bones.
13. This is my home.
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; you can learn more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 84th one.
This wasn't so much a TT as it was poetry.
ReplyDeleteVery nice.
I think it's amazing that your family has been in one area so long. Not many people have that sort of conection to their heritage.
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely and evocative TT. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHappy TT!
http://thornesworld.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/thursday-thirteen-25-thornequirks/
Superb. As I read this I felt the appreciation of home, the desire to explore, the frustration of being tied to my responsibilities, eventually the pride of the same. Then the appreciation of home. Again, superb.
ReplyDeleteThat's nice to know from which country your ancestors came from. A lot of Americans don't know. My aunt had married an American whose great grandpa came over from Germany in 1830 and they discovered later that my aunt's great grandpa was his brother but stayed in Germany. Isn't that a strange story ?
ReplyDeleteYes, I'd say that your writing is flowing very well today, but in a poetic bent.
ReplyDeleteOne of my Irish names is that of some bards. Mostly we are metal workers, which was considered right up there with Nobles (with the ability to make tools and weapons).
ReplyDelete#8 sounds a lot like a poem I once wrote.
If you go to Ireland and Scotland you can fit in the sea as a bonus!
It was wonderful to read your T13. I too would love to see Ireland! :)
ReplyDelete