Shire Ambience

 I'm not sure why, but I have grown to love putting different ambient videos in the background. I mostly choose the ones where there is rain or simple nature sounds with the occasional crackling fire. But lately, I've been selecting the ones that are Shire themed. 

Because of my familiarity with the movies, scenes come to mind with the different musical scores playing in the background. These mental scenes, combined with my own reading of these books stirs a sense of longing within me for a thing I've never fully experienced: Shire Life. 

Shire Life.

I was reading the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring, and there is a prologue Concerning Hobbits... and so much of what Tolkien envisioned with this fictional folk speaks to my heart. I'm a Hobbit at heart. I'd live in a little hole in the ground. I'd drink pints and smoke pipes and wouldn't concern myself with the workings of the greater world around me. Oh sure, I wouldn't mind hearing tales of great deeds done by much greater men than myself... I'd sit near my fireplace and learn how to blow smoke rings while I contemplated the adventurous histories of those who had gone before. 

It isn't that I've never had a peaceful moment in my life. Those, I am sure, have been more plentiful than my memory is willing to admit. But the world we live in has lost its simplicity... maybe for a long time... maybe we haven't really had it since the beginning. And maybe that is why I actually long for it. I want the Shire because it echoes forward of the coming New Earth. To a peaceful home of tranquil contentedness where all that is sad is becoming untrue. 

But here we are now, and there are times where I, like Samwise Gamgee, feel like my close companion has found the one ring, and I am bound to travel with him to Mordor... to the very gates of Mount Doom. And I am not the one for this task and I wish it would have fallen to someone else: reminding me of a moment in Chapter 2 of the Fellowship of the Ring

So we decide to keep going. To do our part. To be faithful every step of the way. But we remember the Shire... though we've never been there... not really... we remember it in our collective ancient memories. We remember it from our first mother and father, and it fills our hearts with longing. 

I hope it won't be too long.