Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Bountiful Land

I left this place when I was fourteen years old to study in the city with my two cousins. Since then I became accustomed to the city life and never looked back at this place. After I graduated from college, I was lucky enough to land a job in a company known internationally. For eight years I moved from one city to another. I would occasionally visit our place, but during the short visits I was always in a hurry. Country living never appealed to me. Until recently. Six months ago I was heart broken because my romance with the city was cut when my husband and I decided to move back home. I was not very happy with the decision but there are things we need to do even if it does not bring us so much joy. We just need to because it feels right. So we moved, and now I'm loving it.

I am blessed with this beautiful view from my bedroom window. During the months of April and May, this land was dry and barren, but it is heaven to kids who were flying their kites. When the rain started to fall, it was wet and muddy, but it was a blessing to the farmers who were eager to plant rice. Now, after months of toiling the land, it is a mixture of green and yellow and brown. The colors of harvest time. Soon, every storage room within our little place will be filled with sacks of rice. A reassurance that there will be enough to feed a family until the next harvest time, or that a student will be able to pay his tuition fee in the next semester.

I do not have to look far to appreciate some more the blessings of living in the rural area. Our backyard is filled with vegetables. If I needed an eggplant for breakfast, a "siling labuyo" or a calamansi, I only need to look within our yard, and I would find them there. A relative dropped by this morning and gave us 40 pieces of milk fish fresh from the pond. A kilo in the market would cost us almost a hundred peso.

The free things within this place are indeed blessings. But the real blessing for me is the patience, hardwork, the kindness, the unpretentious life that unfolds in my very eyes everyday.