we don't really have fields around here.

Of course we do.  I actually kind of live at the edge of them--past the gym: the fields.   But most of the time, if we're outside, we're looking at neighborhood or woods. 

In blogland, there are lots of fields-maybe especially lately because of the season, since there's so much to absorb outdoors right now.  The photos are both stunning and understated--they feel calm and common, as if these views are ways of life.  I'm not trying to say that field pictures are some kind of cliche, more that after I'd seen a few, I started to feel a little bit of envy each time I saw another.  A wonderful peek into a different way of life that's really, really different from my own.  My posts end to be sort of urban, or at least indoor--pizza, banana bread, my pantry.  Reading about fields had kind of left me with a hankering to get to a different outside--not to the fields, because that's just not really where we go--but someplace.

Today, we did.  And of course it was tons of fun to see this:

 and this.

But then I saw this.

It was such a blessing, this exact perspective, this exact spot.  My own personal field--except in the woods.  The sun setting and shining--glowing--through the trees, the quiet, the cold!  But it was a neat experience, because it was empirical proof that blog surfing is time well spent.  It's as if seeing all those fields (and quilts, and sweaters, and everything!) got me there, to this view of this moment.

Otherwise: take a minute to read this post.  A lovely story in its own right, especially fun for me to read because Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr live and work in my howntown, where my parents still live, and because it reminds me of this.  Good luck to everyone running tomorrow.  Maybe again someday.