Stories from the Cotton Fields

Even though I considered the garden a nuisance, I guess as I was getting a bit older, I came to enjoy the peacefulness it offered. When I first went outside in the mornings, my reaction was always the same. Everything was so quiet and peaceful that I couldn’t help but stand there in awe on the back porch and take it all in. The sun hadn’t yet burned off the mist, and everything had a hazy look. Looking out in the distance was difficult. It was like a curtain had been pulled over our house and our property and it seemed that we had been blocked off from the rest of the world. I was never able to see the fields of cotton that stretched on and on in every direction. It was like they had disappeared. The air was cool and damp and everything was absolutely silent except that every once in a while, you could hear the faint but sad coo from a mourning dove.

I took several breaths of the cool, fresh air and forgot about the girls at school that wore fancy dresses and never talked to those that didn’t. I forgot, just for a moment, about the cute boy who sat in the corner of the classroom that had never said a single word to me. I forgot about the gossip and the untrue things that were said on the streets of the small town we lived just outside of. All of these things were forgotten, at least momentarily, as I gazed upon the still, quiet piece of the world in which I lived. I said my short, silent prayer to start the day and felt that peace come over me as I stood there. - Stories from the Cotton Fields, Chapter 2: Our Garden