Some journeys are longer than they are. The road from my door to the farmhouse door is some forty miles, but it always takes me so much further.

Yesterday evening, the kids and I drove down to the farm for an extended Memorial Day weekend. I’ve written often about this place before — almost every time we come here, I guess. It’s a plot of modest acreage in Noxubee County where my mother was raised. Only forty miles, but as I said, some journeys are longer than they are.

The farm and I go way back. For me, it has always been a place that symbolizes simplicity — simple times, simple fun, simple experiences. Life more easily boils down to what matters in this place. At least what matters to me. My largest experience with the farm has been in unscheduled days. The days punctuated only by our own whims, or by the rest from having fully enjoyed them.

When I was a child, we sat in metal lawn chairs under the canopy of a huge pecan tree in the backyard. We drove to town to talk to Grandaddy’s friends over a Nu-Grape and a package of salted peanuts. We mixed up pecan pies with white Karo and butter. Forking the crust was my job. We watched Lawrence Welk on ETV with the ladies dancing in their cotton candy-colored long ruffled dresses. We laughed with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show as he entertained his guests. The best moments were always when he couldn’t keep himself from laughing. Like us.

Back then, we only had four channels for entertainment. Plus the sunshine. The pasture. The Nu-Grape and peanuts. The pecan pie.

Now the farm still draws us into simpler notions even though we come armed with DVDs, Nintendo games and iPads. We get more channels. We bring more channels. But, we don’t need them. The sun and the water hoses and the walks on the road seem to have a stronger pull. And the laughter. The funniest moments are when we can’t keep ourselves from laughing. Still.

The farm pulls us simply to do what we want to do without the distraction of other obligations. We immerse ourselves in our own thoughts and our own whims. It’s a luxury of freedom that, perhaps, isn’t appropriate most of the time, but becomes necessary at least sometimes.

My heart undergoes a transition when I’m preparing to visit the farm. Tangibly, I begin rearranging and recording the calendars and task lists of work activities so that the joy in doing what I love emerges again. And in so doing, the freedom to leave it unattended without worry emerges. It’s my own process to move myself toward simple, to shed the projects and schedules and bills that circumvent my thinking. As I pack our pajamas and bathing suits, I begin to peel away the burdens that sometimes hijack my whims and the desire to chase them. The place of simplicity calls when my spirit needs to lay down those burdens of stress and worry and frustration crowding my joy in simple things. Simple experiences. Simple places. Stress is a serious problem if you don´t control it on time, you can visit this site to find a simple way of doing it.

The journey to simplicity is often longer than it is.

It’s the distance between schedules and whims. Between crowded and joyful. It’s the distance from on to off, between closing the laptop and opening the book. Between “when I have time” and “yes, right now.” It takes us further than we expected.

Here, we walk on gravel roads and listen to the sound of our own feet crunching in search of adventure. We choose the most colorful stones to carry with us.

Here, we pick the plantings of our grandmothers and give them new prominence. We find wildflowers both delicate and steely. They journey from dusty fingers to sun-chased bottles as we honor them. Each has a smell, even if only the scent of our own attention.

Here, we hold a roly poly in our hands and wait. We wait for it to find enough comfort to unwind itself and explore the vastness of skin and palm and wrist. Its tiny feet tickle our flesh as we deliver it to the next blade of grass.

Here, we play with sticks. They are swords and staffs and wands armed for magic.

Here, we build fires to roast our hotdogs, baking our laughter into a fine buffet. We scream and blow our blackened marshmallows when they find themselves ablaze. We giggle and sigh with relief as they melt into the chocolate.

Here, we count the spots on ladybugs to discern if they are random or patterned. We wonder why some are missing their spots. Maybe they’re too old or too young.

Here, we pull the inaugural dandelion of the season — the first of many treasures released to bear more.

Here, we build things out of scrap wooden blocks — out of nothing, really. They are leftovers with windows and stories.

Here, we find Orion’s belt, gazing at the stars, and wish for parting clouds to reveal his prey. We are sure there is no twinkle as bright as this dark sky.

Here, we play our games and watch our movies as consolation prizes when outside has become too dark or too sweaty to dispatch its trophies.

Here, we hold hands, comparing sizes. We grab hold of ourselves in years gone by and in years to come. “I’m growing up,” we declare.

Here, we get back to there gingerly. We see there in different windswept light, through the lenses of simplicity sweetened with laughter and time well-spent. Here, we do nothing. And everything.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line–or so the saying goes. I’ll bet that’s absolutely true in pristine geometry. In life, I’m not so sure it always plays out that way. In fact, I’ve realized that the winding path can sometimes yield unexpected rewards, and get me to my destination to boot.

A week or so ago, I was traveling to south central Mississippi to visit with a Small Pond Graphics restaurant client and ended up spending most of the day on the road–MS Highway 31 South, to be more precise. Oddly enough, Google thought the best (and fastest) way to get from Starkville to Magee, MS was through the curvy, two-lane highway route–a fact that may be uniquely indicative of Mississippi. Because it was true. It WAS the fastest way to get there, although 4-laned, 70mph speed limits were only a small part of the itinerary.

Stepping out of the four walls of my office and out of the mindset of the digital world proved to be quite a sigh of relief that week. One I’m still relishing. It’s interesting how a simple change of scenery can offer much-needed refreshment, even if that scenery is mostly seen from the front windshield. More interesting still is the new perspective that comes in releasing yourself from the need to get there as fast as possible.

I left early for the trip because I didn’t really know the way, and while Google may be the quintessential authority on most things, I wasn’t convinced that the back roads of Mississippi were actually included in that knowledge-base. I’m sure I have traveled that part of the state a few times in my adulthood, but the last time I really remember paying attention to it was when I was a child. That was the trip I took with my Grandmother to trace the roots of her growing up years around Smith County where I was photographed religiously beside many personal landmarks. And, I have the goofy, mis-proportioned, knee-socked, pre-teen, girl-standing-by-a-road-sign Polaroids to prove it. This time I only passed BY the sign to White Oak, MS. I didn’t actually stop to recreate that childhood photo op. But I did take my camera. And, I took my time.

The trip was an exercise in stopping–to smell the figurative roses, perhaps. Although, I suppose the sense of smell isn’t the one that got the most refreshment. (Unless, of course, you include the distinctive scent of chicken houses as a source of inspiration.) My senses of awareness and appreciation were the ones piqued along this journey. If you’ve poured over the Junkie tags list (and I’m SURE you have), you may have noticed a tiny one called “vernacular typography”. It’s a big ol’ phrase that, for me, just means hand-painted signs. Searching them down and recording them is sort of a haphazard hobby I’ve had since college. I just enjoy seeing the ingenuity and creativity folks put into communicating themselves without the benefit of cut vinyl. For the unindoctrinated, winding roads and small towns in Mississippi are the mother lode of hand-painted signs, y’all. I’m beginning to share some of the images I found over at Plop! my company blog, if you’re interested.  But, here, my mention of it is more an acknowledgement of the process of stopping. And capturing. Of driving and winding. And stopping. Of turning around and driving back where you came. To see something again. And to mark it in time with a snapshot. Whatever oddity it represents or what interest of the “designer” it communicates, the act of stopping and paying attention to something that caught your fleeting fancy is a phenomenal experience. Yes, my senses of awareness and appreciation were more than awakened.

In addition to capturing quite a few hand-painted signs, in this trip I saw turkeys. I saw rows of hay bales recently rolled and ready to be stored for winter sale or cattle grazing. I saw rows and rows of chicken houses representing one of the farming profession’s staples in this part of the state. I drove through the Bienville National Forest that boasts no cell service but stands of pine 12 feet from the road without the tell-tale reddish brown dying undergrowth produced by herbicides used to keep the normal summertime Mississippi roadside vegetation at bay. I saw the shade of those trees pierced by moments of sunlight. I saw the curves and the mailboxes and the road signs bearing the names of county folks. I saw Good Hope and Lena and Forkville. Morton, Polkville and Puckett. Yes, Grandmother, I saw White Oak.

I saw my need to get somewhere fast vanishing. I saw my own peripheral vision come into focus. I saw the journey grow just as valuable as the destination.

Spring in Mississippi is so fun. In a week’s span (or less) we might experience the gamut of 90 degrees to 40 degrees and all the breezy, sunny, partly cloudy weather-joy in between. While it sometimes wreaks havoc on my sinus cavities, I can still say that Spring in Mississippi is so fun. May is usually very flirtatious with Summer. It flirts with the Magnolia tree in my front yard, too. The evergreen leaves are with us year-round, but the white velvet flowers tend to signal for me the wishy-washy transition of Spring to Summer around these parts. As Spring pulls up a chair and the days get warmer and longer, the magnolia pods begin to open. I’ve been anticipating the event for a few weeks from the front porch swing.

In typical early May fashion, just last week I noticed the first blooms opening near the top of the tree where the sunshine hits most readily. Slowly the ones closer to the ground feel the pull of the heightening sun and begin to unwrap as well. I’ve been watching one particular bloom carefully for the last few days. It’s on the lowest branch on the north side of the tree–one of the few growing right in gazing distance of curious eyes and inquisitive noses. This bloom started small and tightly held as they all do. Slowly it’s been pulling away from the branch, reaching higher. And, it’s been getting whiter with each motion. Yesterday morning I noticed it at it’s plumpest posture so far, and I wondered if the intricate yellow stamens might make an appearance today.

By the time we made it home from Little Drummer Boy’s preschool “graduation” (hark!) last night, the daylight was almost gone. But, I still had my eye on that bloom. It had slowly opened throughout the day to a tulip-shaped cup. We were almost there. I didn’t get to photograph it before the darkness arrived, but I was eager to see it this morning. In an amazing twelve hours, that velvety cup of Southern goodness had completely opened, and through some crazy midnight wind gust or cardinal in flight, it had already begun to drop some of it’s pink-tipped stamens into the waiting petals. Life happens quickly with the magnolia.

The scent of a magnolia flower is fresh. It has a pungeantly clean smell to me — a sweet and lemony fragrance that seems untouched by a botanist’s manipulation. When the blooms open, you don’t have to stand very close to sense the strength of that scent–to feel the place from which it comes. The magnolia is a plant of my “place.” An environment so familiar to me that the blooms sometimes go unnoticed despite their glaring whiteness against dark green leaves and their powerful fragrance. But, I’ve been waiting for this one for some reason. I wanted to see inside of it, to see again what it was made of.

The slow and diligent process of blooming is inspiring. It is patient, but intent. It is subject to wind and weather, but resilient. With encouragement from the sunlight, the bloom slowly and methodically unwraps itself from a tightly wound cocoon. As I’ve written before, it reveals it’s core in that process.

That blooms are bent on opening is a confusing endeavor at times, given the fact that the flowers so easily fade away. But the magnolia’s diligence is perhaps most perplexing. This delicate flower fades to brown and petals fall away rather quickly by blooming standards. They don’t tarry in the elements for long. They bruise easily with the slightest touch of a person or some other ambassador of nature. Soon the stamens released into the petals’ cradle will be scattered by breezes or birds or beetles or boys. It won’t maintain its pristine white for long if plucked from the tree–only a matter of hours really. Yet, I’ve read that Magnolia fossils have been found that date the tree to the time of the dinosaurs. For all its vulnerability to bruising and brevity, this tree–this flower–has staying power.

There is a precious quality to the magnolia. Something valued and worthy of anticipation, even in this native land where it is so prolific. Perhaps it is its delicacy, its subtlety, its brief brush with the world that makes it seem so valuable. And, its unqualified diligence to expose that worth, even if only for a few moments is even more coveted. As I think about my own growth, my own life changes and my own exposure to the face of the sun, I’m recognizing some lessons from the magnolia. To remain hidden and covered is easier. To allow life’s wind and weather to deter or confine the process of flourishing. A slow–perhaps even defiant–method of diligence despite any bruising the stuff of life may offer is sometimes required to reveal that hidden amazement, that hidden desire to connect with those around me, those hidden gifts waiting to be given. The revelation is precious, no matter how briefly it is uncovered. But, as precious and revered as the open petals are, I’m learning that the greater rarity is the diligence. The persistence. The insistence. A thing all the more precious to seek. All the more precious to possess.

“The precious possession of a man is diligence.” (proverbs 12:27)