The Writer's Pen

When I first drove into Iowa to visit my son and his family, I was puzzled by the terrain: vast, flat farmland with little islands scattered at what seemed to be about half-mile intervals; islands of trees, in clumps, in every direction, as far as the eye can see.

I asked my son how these huge trees grew in clumps all around the farmland. He explained that each clump of trees was surrounding a farmhouse, because without the trees, the winds could roar across the fields and the homes would have no protection. Each group of trees was a farm!

It still fascinates me – even driving simply from Estherville to Spirit Lake – to see these island farms in the sea of cornfields. It still baffles me how those trees grow up in time to protect the houses. Do the families plant the trees years ahead of time? Do they transplant them full-grown? What does it feel like to live surrounded by land, with your neighbors almost geometrically spaced around you, a mile or more away? How do the children get to school? Does the bus wait for them at the end of their long driveways? Or do parents transport them?

The island I grew up on was sandwiched between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It was a 45-minute bus ride to school every morning. And if a bridge broke down during the day, the bus might have to wait for hours on the other side until it was fixed before we could get home. It was swimming maybe twice a day or waterskiing the full length of the 12-mile long ¼ mile wide island, appropriately named "Longboat," feeding the racoons, or killing rattlesnakes.

Do I miss it? I'm often asked. The sandpipers scurrying on the white sand beaches, the pelicans and seagulls overhead, the salt smell in the air, detectable the moment you are driving across the bridge approaching the beaches? I say I don't have time or energy to waste on something I can't change, but when I take a minute, like now, to describe it – yes, I become wistful and could go on and on.

But I'm in Iowa now. And I'm starting to sense the integrity – the dependence on nature – living with farming at the core of the community.

And I can't think of a better place to have been exiled – or to have unexpectedly relocated. Because God's world is beautiful everywhere, and his people – which is to say all people – resonate in their depth with the same longing to be connected; to grow and develop with their individual gifts, and to encourage each other, no matter at what stage of life they find themselves; to share what they've learned and learn some more.

Besides, if one of my favorite Florida memories is riding on the bow of an outboard motorboat letting the wind rush against my face and hair, all I have to do in Iowa is step out the door!

Donna Davis is a Florida transplant living in Spirit Lake. She is a member of the Hartley Writers Group.