Finding The Fallow Field

My grandfather was a hard man.

Like all hard men, he was shaped by difficult circumstances.

But his last twenty five years were blessed by the embrace of his family and community. He became a softer, better version of himself.

I start this piece with him because of something he loved to say.

“It’s a beautiful day in Fallowfield Township!”

He would say it proudly, and with a big grin that lit up his handsome face. My mother plucked it out of her memories as a way to see beauty through pain and fear, a talent she has perfected.

It’s a simple phrase. But as with so many simple things, it can hold transformative power.

Fallow.

I find it to be a lyrical word. It rolls off my tongue. It looks good on the page. It has a particularly English landscape feel to it. I see a newly plowed field lined with stone walls. A rabbit hopping across into a brambled hedgerow.

Fallow is a word given to us by the farmer…