The things that matter most

1977. It was a year for Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street. For big wheels and Sit & Spin. For really red, sweet, strawberries. It was also the year of my earliest garden memory when I snuck out to scale a massive three foot chicken wire fence installed to protect the crop from predators. The strawberries were wonderful, yes, but the sense of freedom was exhilarating.

That sense of freedom was an inextricable part of my childhood. We knew the seasons not by the calendar but by when the walnuts fell in their pungent green husks, when the days became longer, when the cedar waxwings popped in to lunch on cedar berries on their northern or southern migration. That sense of freedom pushed me to tune in to the ebb and flow of the natural world and it challenged me to tune out screens and battery powered “stuff.” And somewhere along the way, those experiences shaped me to approach challenges in a creative way, to value conversation – the thing that happens face to face between two people, and to appreciate “quiet” as much as I enjoy activity.

Today, that sense of freedom is being replaced. In our ever demanding desire to live faster, more efficient lives, to remain ever connected, we’re becoming disconnected at an alarming rate. Dinner conversations are interrupted by blue screens. Free time is being replaced by organized activities. And for those of us who can feel it slipping, we’re torn between the things that really matter and the real world we live in. It’s my hope that by building A community, we are building … “community”… a place that will give ourselves and our children the opportunity to indulge in the things that really matter.

//Jennifer Howard, Summers Corner Communications Director