Contented Cow

When I lived in the mountains of Sun Valley, ID, I would often head over Galena Summit. I enjoyed lingering there at the peak of the summit and remembering great back country ski runs or cross country skiing adventures. It is over the summit and onto the country highway near Red Fish Lake that I saw the beautiful herds of cows and sheep grazing the plains. Moooove over, people. 

Country drives over the summit is the first place that I tried to ponder life from the cow’s perspective. Deep thoughts here. Although I am no cow expert, it seems to me that they sleep and eat grass all day long. Cows aren’t going anywhere so they aren’t worried about getting there. They are huge and warm with their all-natural nice coats of hair – very cute. Maybe they’re actually stressed out about something, but they don’t appear to worry or fret. (Clearly, I am not thinking about the slaughter-house, yikes.)

After reflecting upon the care-free life of a cow when I was 24 years old I decided that if I were an animal, I would want to be a cow. 

Even then, I often regretted being so caught up in my schedule, plans, expectations, and lists. 

Those commitments beckon me to drive, shop, rush-rush-rush, and engage the world around me. It appears that life would be so awesome just grazing all day. Bring it on.

The simple contentment of being a cow was enticing at 24. Later at 35, when I lived out I the country, in a small community, our family drove to the larger town once or twice a day. We would pass horses, a Silo, a tottering half fallen barn, black and white milking cows, a classic red barn, a Swedish looking white barn, a poplar tree plantation, and would cross the bridges over rising and falling rivers. 

On the way there we passed what we considered our own herd of cows. Like little pets we had names for some of them: Blacky, Grey Smoke, Oreo, Daisy, Browny, and the bull with the horns whose name was….Horny. Seriously.

Sometimes the cows disappeared and we as parents would try to soften the blow of cows going to “another pasture.” I lived it up with 5 years of daily seeing the cows as our little family drove by.

Our family has since moooved away from the cows to the big Mooooovin City. I remembered my friends the cows not long ago. I was knee deep in water at the lake in a black and white swimsuit. My five year old came running up to me and yelled loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mom, you look like a cow!”

We laughed really hard knowing what it really means to look like a cow in a swimsuit!

Now, I smile when I see that swimsuit. I remember that in it, I look like a cow – maybe I will bury that one at the bottom of the swimsuit drawer! But, I still wonder about the simplicity of being a cow. I long for a place of stillness and predictability just as I did at age 24. Maybe this means that I am not all that different now than I was at 24. 

I long to mooooove toward the simple life in many ways. 

(Silence.) 

It is very true that the green pasture and the quiet waters restore my soul.