Home.

Tonight my soul is aching to move back home. I don't mean like moving in with my mom home, I mean moving back to the country. To that quiet little northern Mayes County section.

You see, now that I'm a parent, I keep thinking of how I want my daughter to grow up. And I desperately wish she could grow up in her grandparents' milk barn, like I did.

I want to give my baby the romanticized rural Oklahoma childhood that I lived.

I think about how my heart would be so full, living the other end of that childhood. And it makes me miss home that much more. But, I don't foresee my mother becoming a dairy farmer and hiring me as a farm hand anytime soon. And I don't know if or when an opportunity to build a life out there would arise.

It's not so much the milking I miss, or the farming, but the smell of hay season (which is ending right about now), the strangely comforting sounds of calves bawling and coyotes howling at night during the spring, the sound of the wind against the corners of a house on an open plain when winter hits, the heat that is so hot you feel as though you could fry bacon on your front porch come the middle of August.

I like our neighborhood, don't get me wrong. It is quiet enough that you can hear crickets and frogs at night, the traffic is minimal, most of our neighbors are nice, and we're just far enough outside city limits that there aren't many sirens or bright lights. But I can't help reminiscing about the echo of a night train four miles down the hill at midnight, a sunrise whose view isn't hindered by trees and buildings.

I can't help wishing Robbie Jo could have a huge yard to play in, a few trees to climb, and an old creek to wade across, just to sit on the bank and count all the turtles that pop their little heads out of the muddy water. She would enjoy those things if I gave them to her. She would cherish memories of tractor rides and hard work if I could provide those too. She would love to live a life like I had as a kid.

Maybe one day I will be able to give her all of those things, and more. Maybe she will write home saying how she misses the sounds, the smell, and the feel of her childhood. Maybe she will talk about the red dirt from our road, how it is in her veins and how it calls her back to a place of simplicity and easy living. And maybe I can give myself what my heart longs for most.