We are Young Here

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Originally published in the May/June 2025 issue of Down Country Roads Magazine

Summer clouds before a summer storm skate across a wild sky, and the rusty, dusty, weather-beaten sides of a barn rise up, like a slab of Black Hills granite, from the prairie grasses and strewn rocks. It grows there, somehow belonging as much as the antelope that scatter and settle and fawn in the summer, or the meadowlarks singing on a fence wire. Somehow a part of the land, not an intruder, and a reminder of a simpler time, when men and women, sturdy of mind and stout of heart, cooperated with the land, submitting themselves to the wind and the weather and the natural order rather than seeking to bend nature to suit their wills.

And how recent this was. How young we are here.

A tumbledown cabin is tucked into a remote hollow.

In a steep ravine, a pump handle rusts away, leaning against a tree, the only evidence remaining of what had been.

An abandoned schoolhouse in a pasture, cows looking out the door, chewing their cud.

Hewn fenceposts scattered under old grasses.

A collapsing roof over a dugout, and some broken jars and coffee cans, all that’s left of an old root cellar.

People lived here, learned here, loved here, built lives here. And we are young here.

Once, not so very long ago, that barn door opened at evening and warm lantern light streamed out. A farmer and his wife or children milked their cows, and cats waited for what they knew was coming. Soft singing or humming, or scraps of conversation, or gentle mutterings to the cattle flew about inside like gentle birds, like the barn swallows that nested in the eaves.

Once, not so very long ago, children sat and learned at benches and desks in that old schoolhouse. Bare feet swung and chalk tapped slates. Horses and ponies were tied outside, a ball and bat and a jump rope waited for recess, and laughter rang out during rambunctious games.

Once, not so very long ago, a homesteader’s wife carefully tended a hedge of roses, hauling water for them to drink, perhaps plucking a blossom for her hair, beautifying her life in a rugged place.

There is an ache in my heart at these glimpses into the past. It isn’t an ache of grief, though there is sorrow there. But it is a sweet ache, almost a homesickness, at the reminders, however small, of the lives lived before we were here, those reminders of the callused, hardened hands, of minds steeled against an uncertain future.

It is the twists of wire patching an age-old barbed wire fence, coaxed and muscled by a cowboy sometime long ago, or not so long ago. The odd-shaped nails in the doorframe of a tumbledown building. Farming implements, long since left to rust. Walls of stone, remnants of industry, of mining days and flume-building, intricate, painstaking work, masculine work, reminders of the hard work done by tough men in tough times.

And then there are the shards of blue glass from old canning jars, a woman’s skill and offering. Little glimpses of domesticity in a wild age. Bright colors, somehow still crisp, of a scrap of wallpaper in a pile of plaster. Lace curtains like cobwebs, blown by a breeze streaming through a broken windowpane. White irises on the ridge above our house, not wild ones, and no one now knows where they came from or who planted them, but someone did. Lilacs flourishing on a remote hill in the middle of the ranch, the only evidence of an optimistic hope for a future life, optimism that still thrives, solitary and beautiful. Oregon Trail roses, those yellow roses of Texas, homesteaders’ roses, along a stone foundation of an old stagecoach stop. Simple, sweet, womanly reminders of a softer side to a rougher age, and that the softer side mattered, even in a rougher age.

You can’t help but pause, and think, when you stumble across these relics, whatever they may be. There is a life behind them. And was it so very different from now?

How many sunny days just like this one have shined down on this spot? How many years were the roses or lilacs or irises enjoyed in a vase by the window, before the hands that planted them disappeared into the past? How many boots kicked mud off on the now crumbling doorsill as a welcome home rang out? How many beloved cows were milked in the old dairy barn? How many work-worn hands have mended this fence? How many times have cattle have been herded across these hills, the very ones I’m walking? How many families have earned their living from the dirt beneath my feet?

I love when the grass grows tall in the summer months and I can imagine in my mind’s eye how it must have looked, back then. I can imagine fresh lumber without the weather-age and paint without chips and scratches; I can imagine cinderblock walls still standing, and panes of glass instead of empty space. There is an illusion of time standing still, or the past converging with the present. A summer storm rolls by, unable to shake the strength of those ancient walls that have weathered so many – how many? – storms and gales. But one day, those walls, that roof, will collapse and molder and fade away.

There’s a temptation, in this modern age, to live as if we live alone, to forget our context, our origin, our heritage, our traditions. To breeze past these little hints of the past, these gifts left by our predecessors, evidence of lives and hopes and dreams and hard work and sweat and tears. As far-removed as the past can feel, it is a mere few generations behind us, and wonderfully near, and beautifully dear.

We are, in fact, young here.

7 thoughts on “We are Young Here”

  1. This was beautiful 💜 it made my heart ache with sweet Melancholy, remembering my grandmother’s stories.

    She was born and raised in Manns Harbor, NC in the Outer Banks, with 13 siblings and i loved listening to her memories. I don’t mean to plug a commercial here but she wrote a book i think you would love: “Papa and Mama Said:” … you can still find it on amazon if you wish to read it. It is a treasure for me. I helped her self publish it 2 years before she passed away, knowing it would be a treasure now, not just for the family but for OBX and anybody that loves to honor the past.

    i mention this because i was born in Panamá, Central America bc my father, grandfather and great grabdfather left OBX to be tugboat captains and subsequebtly Ship Pilots for the Panama Canal, so i am technically a Zonian, although i was born in a Panamanian Hospital so i would have the citizenship. My mother was born in Bogotá Colombia but her family moved to Panama when she was 12, so she is basically Panamanian now.

    Growing up in a jungle, hiding away from the asfixiating heat and humidity, i found solice in its beaches. (All beautiful nature but not a good setting for a homestead as such). I never knew, imagined nor dreamed of a life like our Anerican ancestors lived, until i found a manuscript of my grandmother’s book tucked away in a drawer one summer i went to visit her. (She lived in the Canal Zone until i was 12 years old, then moved back to Manns Harbor). When i read it, something in me moved. I know it was hard times, very hard times. But i felt a bit jelous of the way they enjoyed and lived life making the best out of the simplest things. How they made their own clothes, soap, toys..everything. And how they were so incredibly poor, but had everything they needed. They were resourceful, creative.. their lives had purpose.

    Now, we take everything for granted, and don’t value things/moments as much…we are so worried trying to climb corporate ladders and buying disposable everythings.

    My husband and i now live abroad, but we have felt the calling to go back to basics and start a homestead. We are very late to the game. I’m also trying to get pregnant at 45 (…well, have been trying for a while now)… i have hope God will bless us with 2 children before my bearing years are over 🙏.

    And we just bought an old farm we are in the process of renovating.

    One day we will have a functional little homestead. For now, we are just trying to keep the 30 rows of raspberries we inherited, alive. It has been a crash course in farming and getting to know the soil and weather.

    Anyway, thank you for the beautiful post that sent me down memory lane and made my heart ache a little bit with sweet homesick nostalgia. I miss my Grandmother so much. She was my best friend. And thank you for letting me spill my heart out in this comment.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thank you so much for sharing your story! Those ties to the past are so important and beautiful. Prayers as you work to start a family. ❤️

      And as far as being late to the game? There’s no such thing when it comes to getting back to the basics and homesteading! Enjoy the process – successes and failures. There will be plenty of both! 😉

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      Reply

  2. This was beautiful 💜 it made my heart ache with sweet Melancholy, remembering my grandmother’s stories.

    She was born and raised in Manns Harbor, NC in the Outer Banks, with 13 siblings and i loved listening to her memories. I don’t mean to plug a commercial here but she wrote a book i think you would love: “Papa and Mama Said:” … you can still find it on amazon if you wish to read it. It is a treasure for me. I helped her self publish it 2 years before she passed away, knowing it would be a treasure now, not just for the family but for OBX and anybody that loves to honor the past.

    i mention this because i was born in Panamá, Central America bc my father, grandfather and great grabdfather left OBX to be tugboat captains and subsequebtly Ship Pilots for the Panama Canal, so i am technically a Zonian, although i was born in a Panamanian Hospital so i would have the citizenship. My mother was born in Bogotá Colombia but the famiky moved to Panama when she was 12, so she is basically Panamanian now.

    Growing up in a jungle, hiding away from the asfixiating heat and humidity, i found solice in its beaches. (All beautiful nature but not a good setting for a homestead as such). I never knew, imagined nor dreamed of a life like our Anerican ancestors lived, until i found a manuscript of my grandmother’s book tucked away in a drawer one summer i went to visit her. (She lived in the Canal Zone until i was 12 years old, then moved back to Manns Harbor). When i read it, something in me moved. I now it was hard times, very hard times. But i felt a bit jelous of the way they enjoyed and lived life making the best out of the simplest things. How they made their own clothes, soap, toys..everything. And how they were so incredibly poor, but had everything they needed. They were resourceful, creative.. their lives had purpose.

    Now we take everything for granted, and don’t value things/moments as much…we are so worried now trying to climb corporate ladders and buying disposable everythings.

    My husband and i now live abroad but we have felt the calling to go back to basics and start a homestead. We are very late to the gane. I’m also trying to get pregnant at 45 (well, have been trying for a while now)… i have hope God will bless us with 2 children before my bearing years are over 🙏.

    And we just bought an old farm we are in the process of renovating.

    One day we will have a functional little homestead. For now we are just trying to keep the 30 rows of raspberries we inherited, alive. It has been a crash course in farming and getting to know the soil and weather.

    Anyway, thank you for the beautiful post that sent me down memory lane and made my heart ache a little bit with sweet homesick nostalgia. And for letting me spill my heart out in this comment.

    Like

    Reply

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