I Remember When This Was All Ricefields and Other Things My Lolo Used To Say

You know you’re not a kid anymore when you look at a mall or a condominium and you can remember when there used to be trees standing there. You remember going biking and being surrounded by trees instead of buildings. You don’t really have to be that old to know the feeling. Even 20-year olds get nostalgic over favorite spots from their childhood that are now somebody’s 5-bedroom, 3-car garage house.

This is how you know you’re really old. You know you’re really old when you look at a row of trees and you imagine a mall coming up in the future, 20 years down the road, and you see your future self feeling nostalgic over how 20 years ago,  there used to be a row of trees on that spot.  I call that Nostalgia – Advanced Level. You are already nostalgic over something that will happen in the future because you can see it coming.

Even though we are in the early days of our farm, we can’t help but wonder what it will be like in the future. Will we still be surrounded by other farms? Will urbanization have encroached into our backyard by then? Will there still be birds?  There is a tendency to imagine the worst case scenario for the future.  Which is sad and very negative.  So I try to visualize a positive future instead. Who knows, maybe things will change for the better. Maybe in 20 years people will value trees over malls. Maybe people will crave for wildlife and nature and open spaces. Maybe when people talk about developing properties and “adding value” they will be talking about  planting trees and removing weeds!

So there we were one Sunday evening just soaking in the moment, with just a tinge of Nostalgia – Advanced Level.

The Moment:

We had spent the day at the farm. It was Sunday, so none of the construction crew were around. The horse training had gone well. We were sitting on the veranda in the dark, beers in hand. No electricity yet, just an ice chest, flashlights, and oil lamps. The dogs were wiped out from chasing each other through the grass in the dark.  A single firefly fluttered by.  A mystery bird called and flew past the cottage. And we were just looking at nothing and enjoying all that nothing.