Moments that Take You Back

The other night I returned home from a friend's house and got myself settled in. As I do on most nights, I went and sat in the four season porch to relax before going to bed. I usually sit with the lights off so that I can see out the windows, but on this night I looked out and could see-- fog! Since moving here, it's been nice to be able to sit in this room and look out at the backyard with its two leafing trees and bits of sky. There's so much more than I could see in our townhouse.  So I sat and I looked at the fog. And it took me back. Back to when I was a kid growing up on the farm. There, the house is surrounded by a hill on one side, a creek on another and a naturally fed spring on another. The living room had windows on 3 sides, much like the porch here in our "new" house. And it would get surrounded by fog on many, many nights. And sometimes I would be alone in the house and not be able to see more than 10 feet out as I sat by the windows. And here I was again with the same sensation; I was 15 again! And I could just barely make out the creek flowing its way downward through the barnyard and out into the woods. And I could just barely make out the spring and the hill rising behind it on its way to the hay fields. And I could hear the rustling in the yard...and the pale moonlight trying to make its way through the thickness as I waited in silence for the sound of the car that carried my mother and father home to me.