This house has awoken something in me over the years.

Something old.

Something hearty, like meat and potatoes, simple, without all the fixins.

Like thick leather boots on hardwood floors, solid and familiar.

It’s a feeling you can’t get with rubber soles or heaven forbid, carpet.

It’s like something I’ve always known, even before I was born and breathing in this world.

Like the cotton field across the street growing up and the tree house tucked away in the back yard…

The ease of me and my brothers bodies running wild in the woods–splitting rocks with hammers, racing ’round with flashlights at night, catching crawdads in the creek.

All the things this house “lacks” in modern convenience…

All the hardships from this living…

Are the very things that call this old soul forth… to reframe

The heat don’t come on without a little effort.

The hot water takes a few minutes to get going.

You’ve gotta’ get down that ladder to use the bathroom.

The toilet takes a little dirt.

Let’s just say it ain’t no flip-the-switch kinda’ house.

It requires a little curiosity, a little grit, to get it all going.

But oh is the reward sweet.

She lights and hums in all her glory,

glowing gentle like your little eyes presenting mama with those crawdads from the creek.

And you hum along with her, like the crickets at dusk, one in the same.

When you’ve taken the time to reframe poor from simple and difficult from earned.

Well then you know there really ain’t no better way…