Seasons of Corn

People do change, although we don't change because others want us to, and we can't force others to change even when we think it would be good for them or because we wish they would. Even I can change. Do change. We change when it makes sense, when we are ready, when the benefits outweigh the hazards, when longing overcomes grief and intransigence. When we are blessed and offered a gift. When we have no other choices for survival. When we learn that it's not sinful to be happy. When we are confronted with the need to care for our own self, so that we can continue to work , continue to love, continue to care for others. When we notice things we have always ignored; suddenly see that which has been hidden or denied.

I have always had difficulty with attachment. I like living alone. I will not miss you when I don't see you for months. I don't call. You have to call me and pursue me to hold on to me. There is a history to this, it is unimportant. In some ways it's a simple fear of abandonment. In some ways I have a transcendent sense of attachment. I don't need to be in your presence to hold on to the connection. I accept that things are not lost, sometimes we just don't know where they are, what they have become. Because I am leaving, again changing my life completely (seemingly), I am having to answer to what it is I will miss here. In this place. At this job. During this epoch of my living.

Here is where I drive to work everyday along country roads where farmland is abutted by tracts of enormous new homes, many burdened with the effects of over-financing. There are these fields that have homes scattered on them with no trees in sight. Stupid for homes, right? But then there are fields and fields of corn. Mostly corn, some soybeans. It is hilly land and corn grows well on it. Sweet corn and field corn. Corn for fresh-picked, salt-buttery summer eating and corn for fuel. Corn meal, maize, mush, polenta, corn syrup. Corn.

I will miss the seasons of corn. The land tilled and reddish and ready. The short green stalks. Watching, almost day by day how high the corn grows, the ears now visible, stalks as tall as I am. That's where we are now in late July. Corn stalks shimmering in streams of hot sunlight, bending with torrential rains. Corn, corn, corn. Later--which I will miss this year--the ears will all be harvested, some yellow, some white, stalks slowly turning brown. Dying. Some farmers will plow them under in the fall, others let them stand til spring, letting snow fall over them. Finally plowed under, tiny stalks rise again. Generations of corn, parent, daughter, granddaughter, again, again, again. Seasons of corn.

I will miss these seasons of corn. As a metaphor for missing everything else that is here and won't be in Seattle, where I am heading. But of course it will be here still. As will everything else. Be here still. Be still. Watching seasons of corn. Taking nothing, taking everything, with me.