You almost feel like the next town is right over the hill. at least, I do. and if you would, you could walk all the miles and over distances to that place. Back home, that is. No more to this New England winter, and the houses with wooden panels. They’re painted different colors, one’s yellow. Inside is a vase with porcelain Chinese guesses. You could just walk and walk and walk, no worry about those human legs of yours, and walk and suddenly you’d just end up right there. In the town, in the city, in the house, in the living room, dining room, bed, couch, asleep. Asleep from all that walking, And the house would smell like old books and fireplaces.
Each season brings a sense of love to us New Englanders. Smooth touch of autumn and birds, and musty trails. Summer and Green. That’s the only thought for summer – green. O and it smells so good like baking or nature or grass and green. The seasons bring contemplative silence all around, not in the human urban parts, but in homes. And the bigger houses are empty but bursting with sun, or warmth, or green.
We’re walkers. we walk and think, on trails and on streets and along main roads. A song plays over and over in our heads while we walk. It’s from a decade of youth, say the 50s. And its got three voices that croon together, sweet like vanilla, soft like sugar, and they all say it together. In ¾ time. Not a season now, just walking, and listening to the everybody song. And the places we’ve been flash through our minds like a spinning carousel. I see the different trees and leaves and towns and church bells. The beaches, birches, and botches.
But nothing, nothing is like that town over the hill. It’s not there on a map, or even if you drive there by the highway. But we all know, we the walking, we the singing, we the season-praying, we all know where that town is. It’s deep there, far in. Far.