This film raised all kinds of questions for me, and stirred up feelings that would never have crossed my heart or mind were I not married to my husband. You see, he comes from land.
Here in the South we are proud of our clay, even as we shake our heads over the stains that it leaves on our clothes, our shoes, our carpets, our skin. We dye t-shirts with it, and people buy them (probably mostly tourists. All we have to do is put a white undershirt in the washing machine with a pair of dirty jeans and Ta Da! Clay-dyed shirt for free.). We may hate it, but we're proud of it. That's one Southern brand of love of the land.
But my husband doesn't come from clay. He comes from hills that roll alongside a river in southeast Missouri, from acres of backyard studded with trees, from fields of his grandma's farm right next door where he walked every Sunday afternoon with his family, then went home to check for ticks. He comes from a close-knit, kissing, hugging family of aunts and uncles that lived on the land and from the land, and even if they moved away and made their lives on a ranch in Texas, or inside a church sanctuary in Florida, or anywhere else, they always came back to the land. Even after 16 years in Georgia, my in-laws still call that little town beside the river, home. You can't ever really leave the land.
I grew up differently. I mostly lived in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by, not horses and cattle. I played outside and rode my bike and climbed trees and made mud burritos that I unfortunately sat on occasionally, but I didn't know land. I was ignorant enough that every year when my mom planted annuals, I felt sorry when they died, or maybe felt like she just hadn't been able to keep them alive. (No offense Mom.) I didn't even bother to ask her how long they were supposed to live. The greater shame is that I was privileged to be the granddaughter of the fairy godmother of plants, and I was still too dumb and disinterested to learn a little bit about turning over a shovel of dirt and watching something green and magical appear with the application of water and sunshine and hope.
But that all changed, very gradually, over years and years, as my husband began to lovingly and patiently give me the gift of the love of land. He began by showing me what it meant to care for our property, to take pride in the form and appearance of it. He mowed grass, he yanked out ugly bushes, he tamed an entire crazy grown-over woods in our backyard with his brute strength, determined will, and a machete. I think the little saplings might've started felling themselves when they saw him coming out on a Sunday afternoon, ready to work for a few hours. I mostly stayed inside to read a book and doze. Sometimes he would come and get me to show me his progress and tell me his plans. Sow some grass seed. Dig a firepit. Maybe add some benches. I'd nod and smile and encourage and go back inside.
After he got the woods beaten back far enough for his purposes, and dug a deep pit in the earth, and ringed it with homemade concrete bricks, he turned around and looked up the hill and started making things beautiful around the house. He transplanted a dogwood from the woods to the grass beside our patio, and tied it upright with wire to convince the poor thing is wasn't going to die. And it didn't. Then he dug a flower bed and filled it with roses and irises and lilies, and began to experiment with a few things like tomatoes and peppers and cilantro. And I think that's when I was converted, and fell into the love of things that are green, things that come from the land. Watching that dogwood stand up on its own, putting out six inches of new growth and a gorgeous coat of leaves, year after year, and seeing those iris leaves shoot up like a geyser from the ground, then those thick stalks with their buds like a purple cocoon, and finally that flower like a waterfall caught in time. Every day there was something new to marvel at. And I began to go outside just to see what had happened since the day before. To count the number of lily blooms that were sure to open the next day, to come as close as ever I have been to grabbing a rifle and shooting a deer when they came by in the dark hours and nipped all but two of those almost-blooms. I measured my son's height by how tall the iris blooms were, until our last year at that house, when he finally surpassed them. I won't ever forget that blonde boy in a t-shirt, diaper, and sandals, standing beside a blossom of Holland Sky. I could not get enough of watching things grow.
Then I started getting my hands dirty. I got down in those beds and learned the feel of dirt and clay and the smell of mulch, and scrubbed my hands at the end of the day, satisfied. I headed outside with my husband and stayed, working alongside, standing back to survey the progress, dreaming about and planning for the future. And I took my kids with me, because this was something too important to miss.
We've moved from that first house, where my husband helped me fall in love with the dirt. I still live in a neighborhood, in a city, with a Wal-Mart close-by. My neighbors do, however, have chickens, and the fresh eggs are delicious. My husband and I don't have much land, a little more than an acre. We are the first generation of our family to live on it, but we love it just the same, and every sunny evening and weekend you can usually find us outside, wreaking havoc on the existing overgrown underbrush, clearing the old to make way for the new. Already we've planted a spring bulb garden, fifteen blueberry bushes, and six trees. We make long-term plans, grateful for whatever amount of time the Lord gives us here, and for the beautiful things He makes to come forth from the earth. We do this, because we love this land.
-Ashley
