What You See

The land where I live is a peculiar place, though not as peculiar as some. The place where I live is full of children who play barefoot in fields, but know that it hurts to run through stalks of ripe corn. A place where the fields burn at least once a year, flaring allergies and settling a haze in the sky. Where dust drifts across the roads in place of the dry tumbleweeds seen in photos, and residents know to pull over and wait the clouds out.

I live in a place more beautiful than most, where the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, yet somehow is more breathtaking each day. When the sun sets on the horizon, the glow of the city fades and the stars litter the sky like the sprinkles on a child’s birthday cake. This is a place where we garden in the warm spring afternoon, only to watch petals of snow drift to the ground after tucking the children into bed that very same night.

This place where I live is much sweeter than most. Though we have no grand and majestic mountains to climb, we have only hills upon rolling hills that stretch as far as the eyes can see. We have deer and critters that graze in our front lawns, in both the country and the cities. In this land where I live, the children scurry to school as quickly as the squirrels race up the trees, hooting and hollering for all to hear.

I live in a place that’s lovely to behold, though the residents will tell you otherwise. They’ll tell you of the factory smells, the sewage waste that reeks near the end of the week, and of weather that just can’t decide. They’ll tell you of this land that’s boring and flat; dull and brown. They’ll tell you of a sky that’s gray with clouds and limp with rain. They’ll tell you of fields that roll into more fields, with nothing beyond their vision but more waste.

But I tell you this, and I tell you true: open your eyes and look with your heart.

This place where I live is what I choose to see, and I choose to see the beauty in it, and the beauty inside of us all.