Life through the lens of Mackenzie Free
Let’s return to slow.
Over the years, we’ve all grown so accustomed to busy and so numb to noise that we forget. We forget it wasn’t always this way. We forget the magic found in slowing down. We, our collective humanity, manufactured the rush, clamor and overstimulation of today. Sometimes it’s easy to forget there was a time before now when our greatest source of wisdom was rooted in wild things, and we didn’t carry the weight of the world in our back pockets.
But there is still magic that still exists if you know where to look. Out past the city lights and strip malls. Beyond the traffic and the noise. The houses get smaller, and the yards get bigger. Young and old congregate as peers at the local gas station on Saturday mornings to share coffee and the day’s plans. Local law enforcement isn’t above recovering lost pets. People still wave and ask about your momma. Kids still climb trees and roam pastures like small herds of cattle. And “Farm to Table” takes on a more literal meaning.
I know about this magic because I’m fortunate enough to live within its realm, although I didn’t always. I wasn’t born into it. But my four daughters were. They don’t know it yet, but they are part of dying breed: The children of magical childhoods. They also aren’t yet fully aware of the wild magic that surrounds them here. The gentle nods from nature. The ministry of simple things. The natural world in their backyard. Nature’s never-ending testimony for us to bear witness to.
I’ll do my best to remind them, though, to show them, to encourage them to slow down and adopt nature’s pace, to teach them that in life there is no easy fortune at the end. We only get what we put in. If we plant kindness and compassion, we will cultivate it. If we plant love and patience, they will surely grow. And of all the lessons this life has taught me so far, the truest for me is this: Both wisdom and children grow best in wild places.
I will continue to grow my children like my garden flowers: wild, rooted in the dirt, bathed in sunlight and creek water. I pray the earth will shape them just as much as my love. I want them to never to grow tired of the sounds the earth makes when we slow down to listen and don’t interfere. But mostly, I wish for them to live slowly, purposefully and be content. And that, once they see it, they never grow tired of life’s wild magic.
– Mackenzie Free –
Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama
