Once again, new life is swelling all around us. Baby calves appear overnight in the meadow, and as we drive along the back roads we see fleecy lambs trotting behind their mothers and baby goats playing King of the Mountain. The kids leap gleefully off an old stump and scamper back up again. Babies come wired for play, as instinctive as eating.

Why do we seem to lose the knack for fun as we grow older? More play and reinstating nap time would turn this rum old world around. And chocolate, I think, to sweeten the deal. Those people intolerant to chocolate will have to make other arrangements.

I have sometimes considered writing the President with my ideas for world peace which involve airlifting in chocolate chip cookies, the really good double chunk kind, to quarrelsome countries as a reward for playing nicely. Bubble stuff would be a good, too. Folks can eat cookies and blow bubbles after their naps. And smell the flowers. We should plant flowers and herbs everywhere. Americans could do with far more beauty in their lives. Is beauty vain and frivolous, or as essential as breathing?

“Yes, in a poor man’s garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers –
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.” Mary Howitt

Posted by Beth Trissel
Photograph by Pat Churchman, shot along a back road a few miles from our farm

5 comments

  1. Pat McDermott // April 9, 2008 at 4:42 PM  

    Thanks for the insider's look at the Shenandoah, Beth. We drove down there to see it when our kids were small, but it was fogged in at the time. We'll have to go back! BTW, naptime and chocolate sound fine to me.

  2. Susan Macatee // April 9, 2008 at 5:54 PM  

    Great description, Beth!
    I'd just love to be there.

  3. Beth Trissel // April 9, 2008 at 7:33 PM  

    Thanks ladies. It's a piece of heaven, espcially in spring.

  4. Lara Dien // April 9, 2008 at 8:59 PM  

    Beth for President! Vote Trissel '08 on the beauty and romance ticket!

    L--

  5. Mary Marvella // April 16, 2008 at 8:31 PM  

    Beth, you have a way with words. Sounds like a slice of heaven to me.