On Cornfields
Hello! Yes, it really is me actually writing. It's been a few months, some time that was really vital for me. I have always been proud of the relationship that I have with this blog: I write when I enjoy it, and I have no shame in stepping away from it for a bit when my life gets busy and I just don't feel like writing. Anyway, I'm very excited to get a chance to do this non-work, low expectation typing again. And for your patience, dear reader, I have a promise. I have already written the next two months worth of blog posts, so I will actually be sticking to the posting schedule that I set out way back before life happened: one post, once a week, every Sunday. The past few posts that I made before my hiatus were very emotional and heavy, and I'm looking to use these next few posts to reflect on the small blessings and lessons in my life. With all of that said, let's talk about corn.
Do you ever just do something and think about how completely you fit a certain stereotype? I realized just how often I say "Ope!" only after someone mentioned that it's a Midwestern thing. I tend to push back that only Midwestern people are kind and polite, but I do notice myself thanking people for every little thing. And possibly the most Midwestern/Indiana-specific thing about me is that I absolutely love cornfields.
That fact can seem strange, especially as someone who grew up in the suburbs and has never done any type of farming. However, I think there's a real sense of comfort and home that comes from seeing those fields. Passing them by on the way to school every day, being able to more clearly see sunsets and incoming storms because of the flatness that those fields afforded me, there is a surprising nostalgia that comes from corn for me.
Around this time of year I do a lot of driving around Indiana for meetings and presentations. There's this one specific drive that take me about two hours, with only 10 minutes of that time putting me on the interstate. The rest of that time is spent curving through the Brown County hills and traversing the seemingly ends fields of corn and soybeans that stretch out on either side, only interrupted by the random house, telephone line, or small grove of trees. It's a very soothing sight, the rolling fields and their perfect parallel rows, even in this season right before planting.
I didn't think about how much I loved farming fields until I went to college. I went to school in St. Louis, a city full of large buildings, with not a cornfield in sight. From my 10th floor dorm my freshman year, the only green I could see was the individual trees along the urban roads and the green lawns and manicured forests of the city park. It wasn't until I was coming home for a break that I would get an overwhelming sense of familiarity from those cornfields as we crossed back across Illinois and Indiana. I studied abroad when I was a junior, and where Indiana had cornfields, Spain had olive trees. The English class that I taught had never heard of soybeans before. There was one trip to Loyola, in the Basque country, where I went on retreat in the birthplace of St. Ignatius. We were walking through this beautiful green town and around this castle and what do we see? Corn! Just a few hundred stalks, sure, but for my Illinois-born roommate and I, it was a simple reminder of a home that up until that moment had felt very far away. Now, I live in the middle of the forest. Cornfields aren't nearly as far away as they were in Spain or St. Louis, but it still takes effort to see them. My new normal is the life cycle of leaves and wildflowers, not on the height of the corn stalks. It's still comforting and beautiful, but it's just not a cornfield.
The thing that I find so comforting in cornfields must be their continually changing states. Now, all you see are last year's broken stalks, dormant, waiting for a new year. Soon, that same earth will be tilled and the rich, dark furrows of dirt will stretch out, impatiently waiting for planting. And then, that planting will come. The life cycle from tiny green seedling to strong deep green stalks that reach past your head to withered colorless stalks marks the summer and fall. "Knee high by the 4th of July," "harvest moon," there's a tradition passed down about the transition of corn.
I'm especially thinking about cornfields and soybean fields right now, because my favorite stage of field life is coming very soon. There's a tiny window between the weather becoming warm enough for plants and the dirt being overturned for the year's planting that my favorite small miracle happens. During this small piece of time, the fields are washed in a beautiful bright purple color. It's usually easier to see in soy fields, but if you look close enough then it's also in those cornfields. The purple comes from a weed called henbit, one that takes advantage of the warm air before it's stifled. I always love seeing that burst of purple and recognizing it as the perfect reminder of spring. If you live by a farm field, I hope you get to experience the joy of seeing it too.
Do you ever just do something and think about how completely you fit a certain stereotype? I realized just how often I say "Ope!" only after someone mentioned that it's a Midwestern thing. I tend to push back that only Midwestern people are kind and polite, but I do notice myself thanking people for every little thing. And possibly the most Midwestern/Indiana-specific thing about me is that I absolutely love cornfields.
That fact can seem strange, especially as someone who grew up in the suburbs and has never done any type of farming. However, I think there's a real sense of comfort and home that comes from seeing those fields. Passing them by on the way to school every day, being able to more clearly see sunsets and incoming storms because of the flatness that those fields afforded me, there is a surprising nostalgia that comes from corn for me.
Around this time of year I do a lot of driving around Indiana for meetings and presentations. There's this one specific drive that take me about two hours, with only 10 minutes of that time putting me on the interstate. The rest of that time is spent curving through the Brown County hills and traversing the seemingly ends fields of corn and soybeans that stretch out on either side, only interrupted by the random house, telephone line, or small grove of trees. It's a very soothing sight, the rolling fields and their perfect parallel rows, even in this season right before planting.
I didn't think about how much I loved farming fields until I went to college. I went to school in St. Louis, a city full of large buildings, with not a cornfield in sight. From my 10th floor dorm my freshman year, the only green I could see was the individual trees along the urban roads and the green lawns and manicured forests of the city park. It wasn't until I was coming home for a break that I would get an overwhelming sense of familiarity from those cornfields as we crossed back across Illinois and Indiana. I studied abroad when I was a junior, and where Indiana had cornfields, Spain had olive trees. The English class that I taught had never heard of soybeans before. There was one trip to Loyola, in the Basque country, where I went on retreat in the birthplace of St. Ignatius. We were walking through this beautiful green town and around this castle and what do we see? Corn! Just a few hundred stalks, sure, but for my Illinois-born roommate and I, it was a simple reminder of a home that up until that moment had felt very far away. Now, I live in the middle of the forest. Cornfields aren't nearly as far away as they were in Spain or St. Louis, but it still takes effort to see them. My new normal is the life cycle of leaves and wildflowers, not on the height of the corn stalks. It's still comforting and beautiful, but it's just not a cornfield.
The thing that I find so comforting in cornfields must be their continually changing states. Now, all you see are last year's broken stalks, dormant, waiting for a new year. Soon, that same earth will be tilled and the rich, dark furrows of dirt will stretch out, impatiently waiting for planting. And then, that planting will come. The life cycle from tiny green seedling to strong deep green stalks that reach past your head to withered colorless stalks marks the summer and fall. "Knee high by the 4th of July," "harvest moon," there's a tradition passed down about the transition of corn.
I'm especially thinking about cornfields and soybean fields right now, because my favorite stage of field life is coming very soon. There's a tiny window between the weather becoming warm enough for plants and the dirt being overturned for the year's planting that my favorite small miracle happens. During this small piece of time, the fields are washed in a beautiful bright purple color. It's usually easier to see in soy fields, but if you look close enough then it's also in those cornfields. The purple comes from a weed called henbit, one that takes advantage of the warm air before it's stifled. I always love seeing that burst of purple and recognizing it as the perfect reminder of spring. If you live by a farm field, I hope you get to experience the joy of seeing it too.
Cornfields are such a peaceful aesthetic 💚
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