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Show CASTLE VALLEY TIMES. VVALENTIMESV Castle Valley, Utah - Volume 2, Number 2 Happy Valentine’s Day One of life’s embarrassing moments! That February morning, my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Strong, asked the Wilson triplets to distribute the Valentines we had brought to school and placed in the box beside her desk. Joan Wilson handed one of them to - February 15, 19522 romance does not always run true. The beloved may change. These two loves were led astray by the lure of gold and wealthier lovers than I. However, in each instance the process of falling in love with a place has been the same: the pounding of my heart when I first saw it, the overcoming of any obstacles to be there, and the contentment which is felt when I gaze on the beloved view. That is how I felt when I first saw - We V Our Readers I see my Grandfather Christensen (in memory only, for he died in 1957) out in his Orem orchard, smiling broadly, posing with the shovel he used to guide irrigation water where it would do the most good and the least harm; I remember my Grandad Bowen, farming in the "bottoms” at Spanish Fork most of the food his family ate, and sugar beets as a cash crop; I see my dad, joyfully transplanting wheelbar- me. Surely it was a simple card, one of Castle Valley—truly love at first sight. Why does a place possess some of those lifted from a sheet of assorted hearts and flowers each bearing the inscription, Be My Valentine. us in this way? Some say it is Karma, or that a place in your soul remembers from a past lifetime. Was I once a Ute cabin—a rasberry patch here, a seedling pine there—or establishing There was no mistaking my name written at the top—Donny. Or the name Indian? For they lived in the same places I have lived. Who knows? whenever there was a promising spot at written at the bottom—Helen. Helen. The pretty, blue-eyed, pigtailed, and freckled girl I had been Others say that there are energies and vibrations in the Earth with which we synchronize and respond. Do we sisters, holding a huge sugar beet; and watching out the side of my eye since resonate to a place in much the same school began in September. way we feel the rhythms of music? another working in our Hollister, California, victory garden. I was eight, Embarrassing? Yes. There would be no Valentine put on Helen’s desk with my name on the bottom. It was a two-way noticing but a one-way acknowledgement. Sucker-punched by my own bashfulness. Ouch. What to do. Come lunch time I shucked my chagrin and boyish fluster Continued, Page 10 A Valentine to a Place I believe in love at first sight, whether with a person or a place. When that happens to me, my heart pounds, I want nothing more than to be with my beloved, and I bask in a sense of contentment when I am. I have fallen in love at first sight three times. Once was with a jewel of a small town set beside a sparkling blue sea, bordered by a white sand beach. Later I fell in love with a beautiful Victorian town nestled in the embrace of high snowy mountains. Of course, The wonderful thing about responding to a special place is that I can share it with others who love it too, and the sharing makes the place even rows full of earth or seedlings from one project to another at our summer another small vegetable garden their place in town. I have pictures of Mother: one when she was a girl, grubby in overalls, grinning with her we were dressed alike, and I was more lovable to me. I feel Castle grinning too. I also remember how she nurtured the rose clippings she planted under glass jars in the spring. So I guess the stirring comes Valley is such a place because of the naturally. What I know is that I love to love each one seems to bring here. dig. I don’t question, I just get out there. Lots gets accomplished in those Each one of us has chosen to be here, and many have overcome obstacles to get here or remain here. To me, loving who live in and love Castle Valley will hours I turn and move the pliant, crumbly soil. Maybe a trench filled with gravel to conuol rain waters, some baby trees planted, a salad garden underway, the orchard basins cleared treat it as a beloved place to be passed again after the trees are pruned and put a place means cherishing and protecting it if need be. I hope that all of us on to the next generation well cared in order. This year: arbors, and swales for, protected, and preserved. HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO CASTLE to hold the melt fiom the slopes so the spring thaw won’t make me nervous next time around. But the projects aren’t what makes the stir, it’s the quiet kneeling down VALLEY! —Maria Loe An Earth Valentine Already I am making a list: Things to do in March, outside. Each year I watch the first buds begin to form, and get that stirring in my stomach. Spring rs coming. @aaaera;a and the smelling, the touching, the shoveling, the wheelbarrowing, the warmth, the other place my mind goes—the dirt, the dirt, the dirt. —Cris Coffey |
