Magical forest in Kerry Co., Ireland, kept expecting leprechauns to jump out! Photo by Taylor Johns
I think I’m weird. No, the older I get the more I know I’m weird. I do hide it well. Most people you ask think I’m just like everyone else, a few quirks here and there but otherwise ordinary.
They are right about the ordinary. I certainly am that. But I have a strange craving that I suspect is rather odd for a grown woman. This craving is expected from a five year-old boy, not so much with me.
I love dirt, not mud, its much too messy. Red dirt, brown dirt, rich black soil, sand, you name it. I want to sink my hands in it and sift my fingers through it.
Huge red dirt mountains loom near my house, dumped by road construction crews. It’s all I can do sometimes to keep passing them by. I’d rather sit on the top of one and run my fingers through it.
I came from a long line of farmers, from Ireland in the eighteenth-century through twentieth-century America. And my grandmother was a fabulous gardener, growing everything from flowers and corn, to strawberry patches.
Maybe that’s where it came from. I love digging and planting my flower beds though I don’t have her gift.
Sand is my favorite. It’s more socially accepted to take off your shoes and dig your toes deep into that grainy soil than it is to walk barefoot in the dirt.
Not that anyone is watching me, and it’s hard to find sand in Oklahoma.
On Inch beach in the wild Dingle Peninsula of Ireland, my parents and kids huddled in the cafe, nursing their coffees, listening to Papa’s tales.
Despite the cool Irish morning, the nearly deserted beach called to me. I thirstily drank in the odd yet hypnotic sights as sheep grazed quietly in the background of lush green overlooking the crashing waves.
Forget the warmth and the coffee. The lure of the sand and surf was too great for me. Loose sand, packed sand, which transitioned to wet sand, were all dreamy to my senses.
And then the splash of the icy cold water on my feet as I ventured too close. Sublime!
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Isaiah 43:44– Since you are precious and special in my sight, and I love you, I will hand over people in place of you, nations in place of your life.
-Isn’t it great that God doesn’t care what quirks we have? We all have them. Name a few of yours.
-Thank God for loving you despite yourself.
Great new blog, Lori–You are quite the writer. I’m just the opposite about dirt. I was the kid who didn’t like to go to recess because I hated getting sand in my shoes and under my fingernails. But I do like the smell of dirt, so I garden with gloves on. ~Amy
That means a lot coming from such an accomplished writer!
Randy and Luke were like you, they hated being dirty! Taylor, not so much!