Hampton

Hampton is a small country town thirty minutes from the city. I agreed to drive Carl there last Friday to put a tarp on his old Lincoln and to extract a few old guitars before the mice made a winter home in them.

Carl was his old wonderful self, talking away as I listened and drove through the country. Open fields flowed by in different stages of harvesting as Carl droned on, some already plowed under others cut down to its winter stubble. As I drove I found myself lonely for the land and its quiet treasures.

At the farm, I stood by the fence as Carl mumbled his way through loading his amps and guitars into the back of my car. We were behind the barn next to the three old rusty Chevys’ that his nephue crashed to oblivion in derbies. The land here was curvy with trees lining the low spots, tall grass now turned brown ran along the fence lines, the sight of all this made me sad at what could have been if I had made better choices.

Later on the ride home, I thought again about my country home and concluded that sometimes it is just better to keep moving forward and not to spend too much time in the past. Perhaps some day I will find myself in the country again, although today I will concentrate on living fully, here in my city.