en years ago, when I said I’d be leaving the small town where I’d grown up for Atlanta, people would say, “Oh, Atlanta’s just awful. Why would you ever want to live there?”

At twenty-two, I didn’t know why I wanted to do anything.  All I knew was that I wanted to live somewhere other than Glade Spring, Virginia — in a place where no one knew me and where I was no longer under our small community’s watchful eye.  Plus, I wondered if my small town’s naysayers had ever been anywhere other than the next county over, and I liked to think I knew better.

But I was wrong.  My first year in Atlanta was awful.

I have always considered myself as someone who’s somewhat homegrown: I am a backyard garden tomato, with deep roots in good soil and Farmer’s Market pride. And in the beginning, Atlanta did not couple well with this; I was neither fancy enough nor worried about being fancy enough for the relentless city life.

I despised Atlanta’s society; the traffic was as maddening as it was terrifying; the city parks held no comparison to Virginia farmland; the people — all strangers — were so utterly absorbed in their own lives that I wondered if I would ever make new friends, or if I would find anyone I even wanted to be friends with in the first place.

But then I fell in love with a local who won me over to Atlanta with his passion for his home town, his connection with a thoughtful community of friends, and his insistence that even a homegrown girl like me had a welcome place in the city.

Slowly, life revised the blueprint I’d made for it, and instead of ending up in a smaller town, as I’d imagined, I put down new roots in Atlanta.

The transition was an uneasy one, but over the course of ten years I carved out my own niche in Atlanta, with my backyard tomato of a personality pretty much intact.  Our friends here have grown to feel like family, the family you want to have over to dinner, each of whom is likely to watch closely over Claire’s missteps and achievements with the same interest and engagement I felt in my tiny, rural home town.

But recently, my husband, Andrew, and I found ourselves at a crossroads: he had been presented with the opportunity for promotion – something of a miracle in today’s economy – but the job, so well suited to him it appeared to have been custom-made, was not in Atlanta.

It was in Nashville, a city we have both loved from a distance, but where we never truly thought we’d move.

We had, without even knowing it, begun making assumptions about the forever-life we were making in Atlanta, and the comfort in that was powerful.  But as the months progressed and  Andrew’s talks at work grew more serious, we began to pry our fingers from the vision we’d cast for our future.  And as we loosened our grasp on what we thought was meant to be, the promise of Nashville — a new adventure, a fresh start — held.

Ten days ago, Andrew, Claire, Ivy (the dog) and I moved to a cozy bungalow in West Nashville.  Life moves more slowly here, that much we can see.  And there is green space aplenty, and people who walk up the street just because they saw the moving boxes and wanted to say hello.  The few friends we already had in Nashville have checked in thoughtfully, arriving at our doorstep with wine and fruit tea and, when there was absolutely nothing in the fridge, milk for Claire.  A farmer’s market sets up shop in the park across the way, and Ivy, our four year old golden, is acting more puppy-like than she has in years.  Andrew’s work is just the professional upgrade — if not more of one — that we thought it would be.  He bolts out of bed at six each morning, eager for the day.

We are all keen for this adventure, but our roots are still exposed, our broader family and identity still in Atlanta.  Now, the meaning of what it is to be “homegrown” has changed for me yet again; now there is a part of me that is Atlantan, and different here, in this smaller town, because of that.

What that means is yet to be seen, but I don’t fear it; Nashville is a friendlier place for transplants, and, after all, I’m at home with my family.   Regardless of my own feelings of uprootedness and occasional chaos, Proximity will go with me on this new adventure in one of the American South’s best cities.   I hope you’ll come along.

Photo Credit: Lastonein

t is nearing sunset on the Gulf.  The wind is picking up, and the families who have slathered their babies in sunscreen and shaded themselves with umbrellas and soaked in salt water all day have almost all gone home.  A few couples walk hand-in-hand along the shore.  The late summer sun casts a reddish-gold glow on the sand nearest its rays, but the skies overhead are already taking on the clear, blue hue of water.

A slightly (but unmistakably) pregnant young woman wearing a fuschia bathing suit lies on her back, alone, and props a book on bent knees; I wonder what she is reading and if she, not knowing the delightful, relentless, mind-bending way a child will change her world, can fully appreciate the quiet of this moment.

A family of four poses for their annual summer photo.  The children, who look to be about five and three, wear white and khaki.  In between shots, the boy, younger than his sister, sprints joyfully along the shore, his toes just barely meeting the sea’s receding tide.  He laughs from that deep, free place, the one we are all trying to get back to, and from time to time, his father chases him, adding to the sport.  The girl, with long, blond, wavy hair, takes dainty steps in the trampled sand and does prim pirouettes for her parents.  The skirt of her white sundress blows in the breeze.  The sound of the ocean overtakes their voices, but the laughter holds.

An older man wearing glasses, bermuda shorts and a gray-blue, short-sleeved buttondown, scours the beach with a metal detector.  He walks, looking down, listening carefully to the sounds coming from the detector’s gargantuan headset, oblivious to the abundance and mirth of the beach, focusing only on the graying sand, the few coins he will pocket on his way.  Robotically, he shuffles up the strand.  As long as I watch him, he does not look up or back or to the side, only down.

Rumpled beach towels and two sand pails, red and blue, surround a colorful, wilted umbrella.  A toddler in a pink and white striped cotton dress frolics by the sea.  Her older sister, in turquoise shorts and a white t-shirt, trudges towards the baby, through the sand, protective and watchful, as older sisters are.

To consider a scene like this from afar is to flip through a stranger’s photo album.  The moments, set apart, each have a life of their own.

Practiced observations like these make my own heart expand. They reveal for me something about the nature of things, the freedom and joy we start out with, for example, and the way love and perceived responsibility begin to mold our personalities;  they offer a reminder of how often in life we must sit back with a good book and trust that nature will take its precise and delicate course; even as the brilliant, generous world offers itself to us without asking anything in return, scenes like these also speak of our selfishness, of our tendencies to grow both more narrow and more focused in old age.

Watching this makes me realize how much I have yet to learn, how I wish I could, from time to time, step back from my own life and observe it impartially, for interpretation’s sake.  What might my unguarded snapshots reveal?

Gradually, the sparse crowd disperses.  A few families stand along the rough wooden ramp that extends to the beach to watch the last of the light as evening clouds absorb it.  As the soothing, predictable rhythm of the ocean takes the shore, parents call after their children not to run into the growing darkness too recklessly, but the wind takes their admonitions. The barefoot children, heedless and insistent in their joy, carelessly clamor up the deck and across the wiry grass until they are out of sight entirely.

Photo Credit: HollyPerk716

We’ve been gone the past few days, and the weeds had reached that do-or-die stage where they threatened to choke our spinach patch. The best thing about gardens at the start of fall is squeezing out that last round of food, so I crawled between the rows and pulled the weeds by hand, feeling each root system resist, then the release as it finally popped free.

Joe tries telling me the hoe would be faster and more efficient, but I prefer weeding the tool-free way: In the doing so, I acquainted myself with each plant, thrusting itself up through cracked earth in a way that must, from the plant’s perspective, feel both shockingly brave and remarkable. The last time I paid this spinach any mind, they were seeds, with the look and feel of Grape-Nuts, or all-natural cat litter. And now here they were, very obviously spinach, spreading their waxy leaves in welcome to the wide, blue sky.

I know my vegetables. I know each of them. I know which okra plants need trimming; which tomato plants likes extra water; which leek stems, for some reason, attract more weeds than others. You spend hours of every week alone in a garden with nothing but plants for company, on your hands and knees so you can inspect each leaf and flower, aware of their existence from the moment they were seeds falling through your fingers, and you will know what it’s like to commune with vegetables.

Our garden isn’t huge, but it isn’t tiny, either — 800 square feet, a double plot at a community garden some 6 miles north of our neighborhood. We drive up a few nights each week. It’s not as often as I’d like; this summer, even busier than last year, I’ve felt the urge to buy a house simply for the yard, for the ability to step out of my back door in bare feet and be there, in the thick of green things growing.

This is what I love about the garden — the chance to feel what it means to be. To exist in a way that doesn’t happen in shopping malls, at the grocery store, in your cubicle, in your car while you are driving 45 miles an hour in a 30 mph zone just to get where you are going a few minutes faster.

Being in the garden makes me forget about cell phones. Being here helps me appreciate the world around me in a way that is active and immediate and steeped in an almost cellular attachment to other living things. Being here awakens my own awareness of that necessary connection wrapping itself from person to person like invisible Christmas tree lights, shining bright with hope that better things can happen if we all just dig in a little–and I mean all of us, even people we don’t think we like very much or understand, even people who think urban farming is a waste of time, even Republicans.

I think of gardening the way some friends describe their runner’s high. You reach a place where the world falls away, and all that remains are you and the tangy smell of ripening and the hard sting of dirt packed tight under your fingernails. The highs and lows of your day melt into an evened being, and your breathing does, too, as if your emotional self has been pounded down in a mortar and pestle and all that’s left is the essence of you–the essence of what you care about and how you wish to live in the world and all that you find beautiful. All of that exists in every tug of weed, every leaf examined. All of that exists, and multiplies and grows, every time we tend to the well-being of something greater than ourselves.

Joe came with me to the garden tonight. This is our routine: I weed and he waters, each of us consumed by our own quiet motions. We rarely talk here, except to say, “Look! We have lettuce!” or, “Can you bring me the trowel, please?”

I thought tonight about all the things I think about here, in this small slice of silence where time stills until the sky darkens, and how grateful I am for this regular pause. I happened to look up at that moment, and there was Joe, watering the okra. I recognized the look on his face, the one that says, I am here, but I am elsewhere, too.

And so I broke the silence.

“What do you think about while you’re watering?” I asked him.

He looked down at me, still on my knees in the dirt. And he smiled.

“Music,” he said. “I think about music.”

The Hot Dog Guy will sell you a Polish sausage with everything on it for $3. A footlong for $2. A Tofu Pup for $1.75.

He will grin at you when you walk by, his two front teeth capped in gold, and on sunny days you can almost see your reflection smiling back at you. You will ask for a dog with pickles and onions. The Hot Dog Guy will nod and wipe his hands across the front of his T-shirt, the one that says, “National Guard: Wisconsin, You Can DO It.”

Then he’ll snap on a clean pair of rubber gloves and reach for his tongs, like a surgeon reaching for his scalpel. He’ll turn to the warming tray, swimming with the slippery, brown-gray bodies of hot dogs in all sizes; he’ll dip his tongs into the water, saying, “for you, I’ll find the best one.” He will transform, before your eyes, into an artist, frankfurters as works of poetry; this is sustenance, he will tell you, and I only sell the best, otherwise the white people, they won’t come.

As he works, the Hot Dog Guy will tell you that he moved here from Cuba in 1975 because he hated Communism. He was 29 then, and wanted to be a teacher. Now he sells hot dogs on a city sidewalk in front a thrift store. But it’s the most popular thrift store in the city, with people coming from every corner–people who need to eat, so he is here to feed them. “I picked this spot,” he will tell you. “I’m the only vendor here. I’m smart–I don’t like competition.”

He’ll wrap the dog in white bread tucked in a white napkin, and cradle it there in the crease of his hand. But he won’t hand it over. Instead, he will look at you, over the top of his sunglasses, and he will ask, Do you know the truth about America? I don’t need to be selling hot dogs. I could be teaching geography if I wanted, at the university.

The Hot Dog Guy, whose real name is Paul Pablo, is fluent in Russian and German. He’ll prove this to you if you look skeptical, asking you questions in languages you don’t understand. The Hot Dog Guy wants you to take him seriously. I been around long enough, I know how this place works, he will say. Then the floodgates breach, and he will tell you all about politics and the importance of multiculturalism and the meaning of freedom.

The Hot Dog Guy is a tall man, and he will tower above you, nodding his head so vigorously you’ll wonder if he thinks he can hammer his thoughts directly into your brain. He will lift his voice to the sun, lost in his own pontification, unaware of the line of customers waiting their turn. The woman behind you will shift uncomfortably and look at her cell phone to check the time, but the Hot Dog Guy won’t notice. The melting pot is coming, he will say, in a voice at the edge of hysteria, in a way so caught up in the emotion of things that he will forget to breath, his words punctuated by an impassioned spray of spittle.

You’ll wonder at this point if he forgot your lunch, still waiting in his hand. “Ah,” he’ll say. “Did you want mustard with this?”

But the Hot Dog Guy won’t wait for your answer. “Do you know the history of the Native Americans?” he will ask, jabbing the air with your food. You’ll catch the eye of the woman with the cell phone and give a little shrug, because by now you’ll realize you’re not in control here, and that really this is a gift, a window into the life of a stranger, someone who can so easily strip himself of the protective layers we had come to think permanent and necessary, the defenses the rest of us offer the world that keep us safely unconnected. All for just a $1.75.

So you’ll put your hands in your pockets and nod and listen, the way people do when they have nowhere better to be, nothing waiting for them but the earth turning on its own axis, the movement of the sun across the end-of-summer sky.

he produce stacked on the old white Chevy is what you notice first.

Today, vibrant orange and red tomatoes, grown in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, overflow Tommy Smith’s baskets.  South Carolina Peaches, big and round as any I’ve ever seen, sit heavily on the truck’s top rack.  Okra, divinely green and graceful as a lady’s manicured hand, lies nestled beside squash and zucchini, free of the nicks and gashes that mark carelessly loaded grocery store produce. Baskets of petite red potatoes are flanked by skinny pole beans and pickle-sized cucumbers, crisper than a Claussen.

Muscadines – grapes, Southern-style – tumble over the tops of their containers, holding sweet, distinctive flavor beneath their thick skins.  And beside those, top-drawer Tupelo honey, drawn from hives on South Georgia swampland, and beside that, savory, sweet vidalia onions.  Corn, still in its God-given casing, sits in a corner bin.  Cataloupes, whose fragrance could draw buyers from across the street, takes the opposite corner; its rough, dappled rind reminds me of my childhood, when our backyard garden grew so many melons, each time we opened the refrigerator we had to catch one from rolling out.

Mr. Smith, though somewhat hidden by the glorious bounty of sumptuous fruits and vegetables, is what you see next.  A man in his early sixties, he is stocky, with blue eyes and a buzz of graying hair.  He has an honest face and, when spoken to, he speaks with a deep Southern drawl. For the most part, he is quiet.

Smith’s Produce opened thirty-five years ago on East Paces Ferry Road, in Buckhead.   Mr. Smith, who graduated from Georgia Southern in 1974 and attended one disappointing year of law school (it wasn’t what he thought it would be), found himself without work in difficult economic times; in 1975, he and his father opened a little vegetable stand and called it Smith’s Produce.

“John Henry,” their trademark ‘63 Chevrolet, has made the rounds in Buckhead’s side-streets, moving from East Paces to Peachtree Hills to Pharr, and now to Maple Drive, a completely unremarkable cut-through in the heart of town.   The Smiths rent parkling space from Julio Cesar’s Salon and Spa, an arrangement that works well for both of them; produce customers sometimes need new hairstylists, and anyone who turns in to the salon (much less passes by it) would have a hard time not filling the front seats of their cars with Smiths’ fresh food.

The Smiths do not farm – Tommy’s dad, at 84, still shuffles around John Henry to serve his loyal customers – but they do buy directly from those who do; their partnership with the Southern farmers who supply their fruits and vegetables is one built on trust and friendship – after thirty-five years, a good many of their vendors have stayed the same, and he speaks of them with great affection.

Today, just like every morning, Mr. Smith rose at 2:30 AM.  He was at the Forest Park Farmer’s Market (“The real farmer’s market,” he called it) by 3:45.  By 5:45 he’d made his purchases and was pulling onto 75 North; boxes filled with produce picked yesterday covered the floor of his white van.  At seven, he started setting up John Henry, stocking the old truck’s cab-turned-grocery shelf with produce as fresh and close to locally grown as most Atlantans can imagine.  When I arrived, at 8:30, the shelves were full.  A middle-aged white woman driving a Saturn sedan had just pressed several bills in Mr. Smith’s hand before scooting back to her car, her hands full of squarish brown paper bags, lumpy with tomatoes.  Each transaction takes about as long as convenience store shopping, unless you start asking questions:  Mr. Smith knows how to cook up Lady Peas and get the best flavor from his okra; his advice is worth a little extra time.

The morning was unseasonably cool for August. A slight breeze rustled the leaves above John Henry.  Mr. Smith moved resolutely around the truck, handling each precious ounce of produce with care.  Gently, he loaded tomatoes in cardboard baskets, arranging them in strips of orange and red on the bed of the truck.  He aligned the baskets of okra beside shiny squash the color of buttercups.  He hoisted a massive basket of peaches to the truck’s highest shelf.  By day’s end, they would all be gone.

But now. With summer, our table overflows. Dinner means plates of fresh tomato. Dinner means sitting on the porch with a pile of carrots, the dirt brushed off, the satisfying crack, straight from earth to mouth. Dinner means each night like last night: Joe, arranging plates on the table; me, exclaiming as I tuck in, “We made this!” There are few things more satisfying than knowing where your food comes from. I’ve known these carrots all their lives. These tomatoes, too.

We don’t live lavishly. We are almost painfully frugal. But at the dinner table, we feast like kings. “If people knew that broccoli could taste this good, they’d give up steak,” Joe said last night. Food from the ground tastes nothing like the grocery store clones. They may look something alike. But in your mouth it’s a different story. This is a cross-cultural revelation, something people probably used to know intuitively, back when growing your own food was just what you did because you needed to eat.

We were at the community garden, and a little boy maybe 6 years old came bopping down the path. Milo, our dog, was leashed at the entrance of our garden plot. “Can I pet him?” the little boy asked.

“Of course,” I nodded.

“My name is Gerald,” the little boy told me. “Do you like strawberries?”

“I love them,” I said.

“Come on, then!” He turned and bopped back down the path.

Gerald led me to his family’s garden. His mother, one of our garden’s many Hmong gardeners, was turning the earth, methodically whacking at weeds with a garden hoe. Gerald and his sister went to work, combing the strawberry patch for ripe fruit. They emerged all smiles, holding forth a juicy berry, bright red and bursting.

It was the best strawberry I’d ever eaten. “That was amazing,” I said. Gerald’s sister nodded. “The thing is,” she said, “they don’t taste like what you buy in the store. These strawberries are more strawberry.”

I think of Gerald’s family and their strawberries most nights at our own table. Everyone should eat this way. Food of substance, food that’s more food than preservative, food that doesn’t require a can or cardboard box to get from field to table. Food like this should be a right, not a privilege.

The problem, though: We can’t keep up. Tomatoes, squash, carrots, lettuce, collards, herbs, leeks, broccoli and okra sprout from our garden in mess-hall quantities. When the corn, spinach and potatoes arrive in a few weeks, we’ll be giving food away on street corners, leaving baskets at our neighbors’ doors.

But we don’t complain. Fall is creeping into the air, in cool nights and shorter days and faded leaves on the trees in the yard. Beyond that lurk scarves and snow and barren branches, cold lungs and boiling pots and a farewell to the carrots and tomatoes. Until next year.

t is 5:30 PM.  Claire sits expectantly at our dining room table in a streamlined, wooden highchair wearing a bright pink sundress covered with bright yellow giraffes.  She fiddles with the nylon straps that hold her there and bangs her feet against the chair’s footstool, narrowly missing the dog’s head with each careless leg swing.  Still, Ivy remains under the table, braving the dangers of Claire’s feet with patience only a professional beggar knows – she will be rewarded.

The old, rectangular, walnut farm table has been cleared of all breakable matter and is set only with a purple, garden-themed place mat.  Claire picks it up and holds it close to her face, as if to see if she can smell its floral print. “Wowers,” she says, quietly. And then, “Goodje goodje loobaloobaloo.” She points to the words on the place mat, to the pictures of ladybugs and caterpillars, her curious little index finger extended.  In Claire’s own, eighteen month old world, she, too, can read.

Above her is a brass chandelier that once belonged to my husband’s grandmother, Louise.  In its reflection, Claire’s cheeks are stunningly pronounced, her little eyes even smaller and more squinty than usual. Late afternoon light, from two windows, fills the room.

The walls are a deep green, not quite Hunter, offset with white wainscoting.  Like the rest of the rooms in our little house, this one is full of furniture.  A Chinese wedding chest sits in the corner; two benches – for dinner parties – are flush against each wall; a small, wooden cabinet with a glass door holds fine china and is angled in the far right corner, with one side propped on folded cardboard, thanks to uneven floors.  On the walls are a mirror; scripture from our wedding in artful calligraphy; etchings of both a mountainside and a hunting scene, and a silver platter.

Each of these material things holds meaning, but not, of course, for Claire.

Andrew, home early from work, comes to sate the child with an appetizer of white cheddar cheese.

“Chee!” says Claire.  “CHEE!” Andrew answers, as he breaks a slice into pieces.  She calls for water and then, when offered it, for milk.  She drinks from a purple-handled sippy cup with gusto, sounding a satisfied “Ahhhh” after each long gulp,  a trick her father taught her. She likes to show off for him.

I bring Claire’s dinner to the table: half an almond butter and honey sandwich, cut in triangles, a dollop of hummus, a carton of blueberry YoBaby yogurt.  She wants the yogurt, using her word for applesauce, first: “Mmmmm. App, app, apple?”  Claire reaches for the spoon and grabs it, turning it upside down as she brings it to her mouth.  Her eyes light up at the sweetness, and she asks for more.

I give her an almond butter coated triangle.  “Genku*,” she says, but ignores it.   After the third bite of yogurt, Claire spies the hummus and gestures wildly for it: “Haam?  Haam?”  I drop some of it on the place mat and she scoops it up with four fingers, eating it with relish.  Meanwhile, Ivy rests her chin on my bare foot and applies pressure.

“Haam? Haam?” she says urgently.

“Can you say please, Claire?” Andrew asks.

“Peeease!” she shouts.  She smacks her lips at her reward, smearing the hummus across the place mat before scooping it into her mouth again.  The stuff covers her chin.  Her right hand is webbed with chickpea mush.  She extends and contracts her fingers, looking at them quizzically.  Andrew, more fastidious than I, cleans Claire up between courses.  She recoils from the wipe.  He beat-boxes to make her laugh.  She does.

“Ooooout? Out?  Up? Up?” she asks.

Not yet.  I point to the sandwich, which vexes her. Claire hands it back to me.  “Genku,” she says kindly, but firmly: there will be no almond butter for her tonight.  I slip a triangle or two to Ivy.

The place mat catches Claire’s attention again.  “Wztat?” she asks, pointing to some ladybugs. “Fly?”

“No, ladybugs,” I say.  And then, pointing to the butterflies, I show her the difference.  Claire stares at the ladybugs for some time.  Then, she points to a group of dragonflies.  “‘Wztat?” she asks.  “Dragonflies,” Andrew says.  “Dragon flies.” “Wztat?” she asks, pointing to bumblebees, and the game continues until she grows distracted again, or asks for raisins, or demands to be let out of her high chair, throwing everything on the place mat to the floor, for Ivy.

Photo Credit: Crocodile Creek

* “Thank you.”

t 6:15 AM, our bedroom is gray with tiny slats of blueish morning light lazy through the blinds.  The dog, Ivy, lies to the right of the bed, near the door, on her own sturdy mattress, nearly as large as a crib bed (the alternative – to have an 85-pound golden retriever sprawled diagonally across my husband and me – is a scenario in which only the dog sleeps well).  Our Queen-sized, four-poster bed, bought for me by my parents upon graduation from college, is rumpled from the night.  The sheets, blue gingham from my single days, were all we had clean and therefore do not match the grown-up, beigey bedspread and shams; they carry a monogram sporting my maiden name.

The only sounds that can be heard are an occasional, beautiful, dreamy whimper from the dog and the sound of the air conditioning pushing through partially-closed vents.  The muted voice of NPR’s Michele Norris – or is it Melissa Block? – joins us from across the room.  My husband gets up, presses the sleep button, and returns to bed.  We settle in again.

But then, from down the hall, comes a surprisingly deep, sleep-soaked call: “Iiivy?”  Claire’s voice sounds tiny and hopeful.  “Daddy? Mama?  Daddy? Mama? Ivy?  Daddy?”  And then she starts to cry – not because she is sad, but because she wants to get our attention.  If we stall beneath the covers, she punishes us with her squall.  It is better to meet her demands than to lie in bed, listening to her torment us for our laziness.

Andrew rises.  I hear him pad down the hall, and so does Claire; she waits.  At 6:30 in the morning, the sound of the refrigerator door opening is heavy.  The milk comes out, cheap plastic clipping the granite counter; the top of the gallon comes off with a snap, then the soothing pour, then the snap again, the refrigerator door again, and a thunk in the place where the gallon goes – bottom shelf on the right.

Andrew enters the nursery, and Claire, standing, greets him with a sweet, toothy grin.  I hear her bouncing on her mattress, tip-toed, the springs creaking quietly, and I imagine her little arms, up, ready, greedy for her father’s strong embrace.  “Mah?  Mah?”  Claire wants her milk.  “Mamamamamamah?” (urgently). He hands it to her and I hear her take it down, zestfully, as though she has been walking a desert all night.

I feign sleep when they come back to our bedroom.  Ivy stretches all fours and wags her tail in sleepy greeting.  Andrew puts Claire in the center of the bed and slips in beside her so that we are the bread and she the jam.  Claire pounds on my shoulder: “Mama?  Up?”  Of course. She leans into me, requesting a kiss.  I ask for a snuggle and she does.  Then, for a moment, she sits up and collapses on her father’s chest, face down. “Daaaddy,” she says, contentedly.  “Daaaddy.”  My husband’s heart has just turned to putty.

Claire’s pajamas are white and covered with pink mice wearing party hats.  Her hair curls at the collar.  Because she refuses to have anything with her in her crib, her hands and feet are ice cold, but she does not seem to mind.  She smells of sleep, soap, and musty diapers. “Dinse?”  she asks.  It is 6:45.  “Dinse?” she asks again, pointing to the top of the armoire, where we keep the iPod.

Snuggle some more, we counter.  Please?  It’s still so early.  (But not if you’ve gone to bed at 7 pm.) Claire sits on top of her feet.  She bounces on the bed.  “Up!  Up!”  Her little hand swats at my shoulder.   She tries to crawl over me, towards the edge of the bed; if she fell, she’d land squarely on the dog.   I restrain her, but just barely, which makes her mad.  We are not easy early risers.

“Dinse!  Dinse, Daahhhddddddy.” Andrew groans, attempts a cuddle with Claire who now pushes him away, and submits.  “Dance?” he asks.  “Dinse! Dinse! Dinse!”  Claire’s entire body tenses up and she wiggles her fingers and toes.  This is her unrelenting morning routine: milk, cuddle, dance.

Andrew takes the iPod down from the  armoire and scrolls to Toots & the Maytals’ “Pressure Drop.”  Ivy is up now, circling Andrew and the baby, eager for play and walk.  As soon as the reggae beat hits the air, Claire squeals and giggles.  She stomps her feet from side to side and does the mashed potato.  She puts her hands behind her back and walks backwards.  She twirls, casting her arm out to start her turn.

Claire comes by this honestly – Andrew’s “Wounded Chicken,” a dance he invented while in college, is requested any time a dance floor is within sight.  He cheers on our baby girl, I roll out of bed, and then we all dance.  The whole world should wake up dancing.  Before coffee.  Before showers.  Before diaper changes.  Before anything.

Andrew flaps his elbows and staggers side-to-side with the footwork that won my heart when we were dating.  I do some moves I learned in step aerobics.  Claire watches, smiles, nods her head up and down, and twirls.

The road abruptly dead-ends, forming a “T” with another road that would lead to an unincorporated village if you were to turn right and keep going. But you don’t. Because here at the corner sits a clapboard church, and outside the church on the wild green lawn the First Lutheran Ladies’ Club is holding a bake sale.

Spread across folding tables arranged in a giant square are cherry pies and pecan pies and small white cakes with icing spread in expert tufts; and Ziploc bags of sugar cookies; and tins of peppermint and fudge; and cherry tarts in the shapes of stars and hearts. “BEST Pie in the VALLY” reads a hand-printed, yellow posterboard sign.

A dozen grey-haired women stand sharp behind their tables. They cluck when you reach for a miniature chocolate pie and tell you the pecan this year is better. The clutch their hands in front of their wide, aproned bellies, lean back on their heels in a way reminiscent of cowboys, and tell you how they’ve been doing this every year for as long as they can remember, and their mothers were here before that.

July will slip into August in a couple of days, but here, now, it smells more like the fading days of October, and the crisp breeze makes you zip up your jacket. At the edge of the church lawn, elderly couples sit in lawn chairs pulled close under the shade of trees, nibbling chicken salad sandwiches and sipping warm soda. By the driveway, three old farmers with ancient lines etched in the backs of their necks pluck their teeth with toothpicks and toe at the gravel, watching for cars. And cars do come — people drive up in Buicks and pick-ups, not often, but enough, mostly coming from the direction of town.

The clapboard church stands as a backdrop. It is solid and proud, not as paint-peeled as the nearby barns and occasional houses. There are two other churches in town, and one gas station, one bar, and one small Superette where you can buy milk or cake mix or cigarettes. Twice as many abandoned buildings squat by the road, with boarded up windows like eyes blindfolded, unable to witness their own deterioration.

Cherlene was born here and her husband was born here and their four children and two of their seven grandchildren were born here. Now Cherlene lives alone. Her husband, Frank, died of a heart attack 12 years ago. Her kids are gone, her grandkids scattered. There was no reason, she tells you, for them to stay.

“There won’t be need for a bake sale when we’re gone,” she says, “because by then, there won’t be need for a church.”

Cherlene sounds more resigned than worried. This is the land that cell phones and high-speed Internet and hybrid cars forgot. When the schools closed for lack of children, the residents here knew there was no going back. They’ve long since mourned the loss of their young, and have come to think of themselves as collateral damage to progress. This gives them a certain pride, a reason to press their collars each morning, each gesture a grand example of what is about to pass. And so Cherlene and her sisters offer up their pies and honey, maintaining old rituals, hanging on for the final ride.

My friend Emerencia was saving me a seat, alongside her daughter Simphiwe, and her niece. They were sitting in the front pew, waiting for everyone to take their seats. It was Good Friday and, like every year, the Acornhoek Mission was hosting the Passion of Christ.

“Momma,” said eight-year-old Simphiwe, looking up to her mother with stress-crinkled eyes, “I am worried about Jesus Christ.” Rolling her eyes, Emerencia put her arm around Simphiwe and pulled her in a little closer, a little tighter.

Simphiwe squeezed my handing, seeking just a bit more comfort, as I turned back to see the doors closing and seats being taken. Strange enough, the church seemed full and sparse at the same time. There were more children than I’d ever seen in this A-framed church, built in the late fifties, but still very few people for such a religiously important day.

Outside, the mission’s old classrooms were filled with laughter and commotion. Boys and girls from an out-station prepared to reenact the stations of the cross. Boys were dressed in old choir gowns and priest vestments, while most of the girls draped themselves in traditional cloths with a pattern of Daniel Comboni’s framed face throughout—similar to those worn with the face of Mandela, King Goodwell Zwelithini, and the Swazi royals. Daniel Comboni, an Italian Catholic Bishop, was the founder of the Comboni Missionaries, a group who settled across the continent in the mid-1880s, building communities under the vocation of “Save Africa through Africa.” Acornhoek’s mission was a product of Daniel Comboni’s work, nearly 75 years after his death.

When the Bishop, the parish priest, and a priest just starting his new placement in South Africa walked down the aisle, everyone sang. A kaleidoscope of golden shapes danced across the front alter – reflections from the Bishop’s gold ring and theatrically large cross. Reaching the alter first, the Bishop kneeled down on a sangu and laid his entire body flat against the mat in prayer. Everyone followed, kneeling on the cement floor or the slender, warped wooden kneelers. The late afternoon sun peering through the window cast an elongated shadow of Simphiwe kneeling, across the front of the church floor, just before the alter, just below the Bishop’s feet.

Eventually, the Bishop stood, dusted off his white robe, and straightened his gold-embroidered, red vestment. Father Anton, whose Berkinstocks with socks could be seen beneath his robes, stood at the Bishop’s side and started to speak to the congregation in xiTsonga (with only a thread of his Spanish accent sounding through).

The reenactment began. Simphiwe watched from the edge of the pew. Nervousness seemed to take over every muscle in her body. The boys, acting as Jesus’ guards and persecutors, whipped him with long, fresh-leafed, mango branches. Jesus, whose crown of thorns was a twisted branch of yellow and green snapdragons, was shorter and leaner than the others. Although, surprisingly, despite the painful crack of each branch, his voice exuded confidence and power.

He was barefoot. And nearly naked. His purple and white vestments were pulled from his body as the cross was placed on his back. The whips continued to strike. The heavy gum poles leaned against his thin, ribbed frame, pushing him closer to the ground.

Jesus, a Sotho boy no older than sixteen, was forced to carry the burden across the chapel’s front, past the sacristy, out the side door, along the side of the church, to the front stoop, and down the aisle towards the alter once again. The sound of the mango branches cracking and the yelling of his persecutors could be heard the entire time. Steps from the alter, just to the side of Simphiwe and Emerencia, Jesus fell to his knees, sending a boom through the little yellow church. Simphiwe flinched. The sound echoed and could be heard across the mission grounds. He lay in the aisle, pulled himself up, took one step, and landed again on the alter.

The tallest of his persecutors, wearing vestments resembling Napoleonic curtains, pulled Jesus from the ground and held him against the cross, propped up by the hands of his peers.

His wrists and ankles were wrapped to the gum poles with rope. Nails were hammered into the cross through the gaps between his fingers and into the platform on which his feet were propped. His body appeared to hang. The live Sotho Christ, suspended from the cross, mirrored the crucifix hanging above the Bishop’s head, stripped to a loin cloth, with his head fallen to the side.

Eventually, at the motion of Father Anton – the priest who once confronted me with with an order-like suggestion to attend mass in the home of a Hoedspruit-based Afrikaans family – Jesus was removed from the cross and carried out the door. Girls with hand brooms made of summer cut grass swept mango leaves and wood splinters from the alter.

An elderly woman with Tsonga tattoos covering her legs carried a child-sized crucifix to the front of the alter. The bishop kneeled and kissed the body of Jesus on the cross. The two priests followed. One-by-one, from child to elder, each took a turn. The tattooed woman was there with a white cloth to wipe Jesus’ body each time someone kissed him. Toward the end, Emerencia slipped out of the pew on the with a gaggle of childen in tow to kiss the crucifix. Simphiwe stood in front of the crucifix, alongside Emerencia, and kissed Jesus, together with her mother.

As mass ended, the mission came alive. Women and childen (and the occasional elderly our teenage man) were milling about, greeting one another and talking with friends, or standing in line to greet the Bishop, thanking him for (driving more than four hours to be there and) saying mass on such an important day.

Simphiwe and I stood in the doorway of the yellow-washed cement church, where she usually sits with her grandmother during the week, preparing wool for tapestries and rugs. We surveyed the landscape of families, visitors, and tradition. Simphiwe held my hand with two of hers, locking her fingers in mine, and said to me, in xiTsonga, “I am still worried about Jesus.”