Central Pennsylvania Farm Scene, Late August

First, let me put the link to the music here, so that you can listen to it while you read. :-) The song to accompany this scene of pastoral bliss is Maurice Jarre, with the main title theme to the soundtrack of the excellent 1985 film, Witness, starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. (This film has many things to recommend it, by the way, but I'll leave the rest to others, and mention only these two: its wonderful soundtrack, and its gorgeous scenes of my beautiful, beloved Pennsylvania. If you haven't done so yet: see it. That is all.)

We had heavy fog on Tuesday morning, and it transformed my rural drive to work into a magical mystery trip. Everything you know and see every day looks different somehow in fog. It rounds off the sharp edges of things. It makes the light opaque and visible, and does odd things to the colors of it.

The sun rose through the mist, and I noticed how quickly it was burning off the fog. Too fast! Stop time! Let it stay! But alas, neither the sun nor the fog listened to me; neither did time; somehow, they never do.

And so I took one of the first rural side roads I could, and I parked my car and got out. The fog had come down and left its dampness on everything. Every farm row, every post, every wire on every fence, glistened with droplets of dew. I leaned my arm against a railing; got it soaked, immediately; was glad it hadn't been my camera I rested there.

The road I was on was one on which I had almost bought a house once. But the house was in a development - had too many neighbors, too few trees. The one I bought suited me better in the long run. But I have to admit that every time I photograph this road, I think to myself, This could have been my view.

I am always there in early morning, sometimes around sunrise. I'll show you three sunrises from this road, and perhaps you'll say to me, Yes, you should have bought that house; this should have been your view.

Wednesday 21 March 2012: Singing Up the Sun

Thursday 24 January 2013: A Winter Morning's Pink Dawn

Thursday 21 March 2013: The Rising

Now that I've shown you those three sunrises, let me tell you how happy this place makes me, how beautiful it is. But I guess I don't have to just tell you; I've been showing you for going on two years now. This is my beloved central Pennsyvlania. To have, each day, the opportunity to look at scenes like this gives me a peace in the very center of my being that nothing can take away, nothing can compare with.

If you put me in a city, I'd enjoy it for a day, or maybe even a few, possibly even a week. I'd find some fun things to look at with my camera, I'd keep myself occupied, I'd buy some new shoes. But you might come upon me later, weeping, and I would ask you sadly, Where are the woods, the waters, the gentle farmlands, the wide open spaces, the cows?

Here is where my heart lives. This is home. The sun, rising golden and fair on a beautiful Pennsylvania late-summer day. Another of so many in a row. How did we get so lucky? Three young cows, heads down, staying close together, eating their breakfast under the rising sun. The fog, making the whole world around us a kinder and gentler and softer place, a quieter place, and transforming the light: the air almost . . . glows.

And me, with my camera, bathed in the golden yellow glory of a stolen morning moment, capturing it all, thinking poetic thoughts about this place that is my home, trying to remember to write them down, to tell you the truth of how it was to be present in this moment.

Happy. No, beyond happy: heart's content. Peace . . .