fields of plenty

Yesterday I headed out to Berryville, Virginia, for Antoinette’s son Luca’s first birthday party. It was 95 degrees and the party was outside (normally a recipe for disaster in my heat-hating world), but I still had a really good time, especially since I hadn’t seen Luca since his christening in November. He banged his face on someone’s sunglasses at the party and ended up with a bloody nose—his very first. The poor boy!

The birthday boy and me

One thing I dreaded about the party was seeing Antoinette’s dad, because every time he sees me he asks, “Why you not-a married yet? Eh? Why you still-a single?” etc, etc. And he always expresses shock and horror over the fact that my parents are divorced, even though they’ve been divorced now for 17 years. This time I think he stayed away from those lines of conversation, but I can’t be sure, because I couldn’t understand a single word he was saying. It’s weird...sometimes I can hack my way through his accent and other times I’m lost. Yesterday was one of the times when I couldn’t understand him. So I just nodded and smiled and said “Yeah!” a lot. For all I know, the conversation could’ve gone like this:

Mario: “Are your parents dead?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “Did you kill them?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “Did you kill them because you’re a gross, crazy, useless little bitch?”
Me: “Yeah!”
Mario: “By the way, I hate the fact that you and my daughter have been friends for 21 years. You’re a bad influence and the whole family hates you.”
Me: “Yeah!”

On my way to Luca’s party I passed some fields full of hay bales, and because I’ve always wanted to photograph hay bales (yeah...don’t ask), I made a mental note to stop at the field on the eastbound side of Rt. 7 on my way home, especially since there was a country road running beside it (which would make for easier parking—I didn’t want to park along busy Rt. 7). So when I was heading home, I pulled onto the country road and parked my car on the shoulder, and to my sheer delight, I saw that the hay bale field had a huge rainbow arching over it. Plus the light was stunning because the hay was illuminated from the sun behind me, yet the sky over the hay remained dark and roiling. I scrambled out of my car and ran across the road, dropping my camera along the way (it’s banged up but still working just fine, thank god). I nearly fell a few times, too, because apparently platform sandals weren’t meant for running through rutted, hilly earth and knee-high grass. (Who knew?) I frantically snapped away for several minutes, raindrops and lightning bolts be damned, getting some strange stares from passers-by in the process. It was totally worth it. I’m always happy when pictures turn out like I planned!

These wildflowers were in a field across the
street from the hay field.

song heard most recently before posting:
Man in Motion—John Parr