“My dad spent much of his childhood in this North Mississippi landscape, and the process of wandering alone through these woods gave me a sense of connection to him that I hadn’t expected.”

Early this Spring, at the beginning of quarantine, my wife and I had the privilege of living at my grandmother’s lake house, located between Water Valley and Oxford, Mississippi. She owns about seventeen acres of pine woodland. There is another 100+ acres of property adjacent to her home that she does not own but that is informally shared among her neighbors. We were able to be there just over a month, and I spent most days outside with my dogs, jogging in the woods and swimming in the spring-fed lake. My time there was like pushing a hard reset button on life and career.