The goat farm was tucked in a valley with mountains rising all around it, like pillows on a giant bed. June happily followed the four of us to where the goats were gated together in their pens, her small boots kicking up big clouds of dust from the dirt path. That afternoon the wind blew deep breaths into the valley, knotting our hair and making the dried grasses dance circles around us. We stood outside the fence watching the goats like a reality TV show as they ate their hay and climbed atop the bales. June pointed her chubby fingers at them and mimicked us as we fed them through…

Sunlight, an uncomplicated force without the competition of clouds, warmed our bones and the core of our bodies, too. And with its warmth, I felt the release of stress evade my body like a balloon the day after a party, slowly at first then quickly deflating until nothing remained but molten memories of yesterday’s energy. I had forgotten the way my shoulders could sit without the pressure of piling seasons upon them, like heavy cinder blocks stacked one on top of another, or freshly cut wood rising tall as it waits for the pending cold, or perhaps more accurately, it was like rocks forged against the shore, a family bonded…

Regretfully, we loaded June in our van last weekend and traveled home. How happy we had been in Florida during our working vacation in Pensacola. Now, home and almost settled back into our normal life, it is safe to say we miss the southern breeze in the morning. I walk June around our neighborhood in the afternoon, circling around our yellow house, searching for signs of coastal living I know do not grow here, aching for the place we left behind. How can the neighborhood we left behind feel so much like home, but our actual one feel like a broken link? We miss the southern breeze in the afternoon,…