The softness of the soil entrapped in a milkweed’s grasp. The moments between dog barks, airplanes, and old cars driven by young people insistently down the road. The expansion from seed tray to 4″ pots. The addition of seed trays. The tender trust in Echinacea stems.
There’s so much nutrition in the garden before anything ever touches our tongues.
“Hey honey… is there anything sown in the back left bed because…” Sprint outside.
If I leave the office just when. If the lights time just so. If the traffic behaves just. If, if, if.
I am home with a little light left. Greeted at the door by two gleeful voices, one escorts me to the closet. “Mama work. Mama jacket off?”
Yes, love. As hurriedly as I can. “Mama’s shoes? Closet?” Yes, love. “I do it.” Mmm… My turn. “Up, please.” It is not a question. Outside? “Yesh!”
Outside we traipse. He, on my hip, me seeking peace. Where can I find a sip of calm. Where can I snatch a glimpse of soothing. What can I feed my soul before the light dies.
I uncover the kumquat. I de-leaf the strawberries. I unwrap Bill and find his lit leaves warm at his feet.
I eyeball the compost pile. Is there time? I could…
“Uh oh, mama.” Quickly, I look up. The light is dying. The moment has passed. Only the tips of the neighboring trees are still frosted with the day’s last color. I look over my shoulder. Uh oh, indeed.
I don’t spend much time in sowing carrots. It is a six hand job in our garden, and four of those hands are fast, messy, and exuberant.
But in the time it takes between sowing and thinning, four of the hands hand grown such that the remaining two are left to work in peaceful, rare, savory solitude.
It didn’t get above freezing for days. That’s weird here. I’m hopeful for fewer mosquitoes and cabbage fly caterpillars this year.
I don’t know that I’d seen 20 degrees for multiple days in a row since moving here nearly 15 years ago.
This snapdragon didn’t mind the cold, though.
Nor did these dianthus.
I’ll leave the done-for-the-season lantana pruning alone for a bit. The salvia is already sprouting again, so I’ll prune that first.
We’re all still home. We’re all still healing. And the parent-only tropical trip is cancelled for next week. Perhaps this means I’ll catch the first new blooms of the year.
I sit with my face to the embers. The glow of the tree lights intruding from the right. My face: an ember, reflecting the heat of the ashes and the light of a past holiday.
I crouch beside the stone and carbon. My skin: hot and tight, pulling me into this moment. This marked occasion. This passing of instants in a torrent of glimpses and gleams.
The final fire of the year, but not the season. With hopes this was the final visit of a lengthy season, for it certainly is the last of the year.
We are home. Again. On the Eve of a holiday. Again. We are so grateful. Again.
The village around our little family is diverse in its connection, makeup, and geography, but our being home is truly thanks to each individual within.
The second trip to the hospital this week was harder. The first trip I was calm; I was grounded; I was ready.
This trip, I was not… at first. I found my feet before, I hope, she noticed they’d been knocked out. She, true to form, was nothing short of inspiring.
Here’s to a new year, for each and all of us and every other’s A year full of love, inspiration, health, knowledge, persistence, care, and untethered support.
We had a bit of a scare this week. A third pediatrician’s appointment turned into a direct admit at the Children’s hospital. A hard three days and two nights full of only best-case-scenario outcomes and we came home yesterday.
This Christmas, I am grateful for the health of all of my sweet peas. Least of all, these ones:
I didn’t sow any snow peas this year… odd.
They didn’t mind their light blanket so much as their bean neighbors did. A small final harvest, but I marvel at any bean harvest in December.
The volunteer cherry tomato plant weathered the frost, so those will not be the last winter bites of tang.
And skeptical of the forecast, my love harvested the limes. Twenty two in all and when he unwrapped Bill the next day, he was no worse for the wear…including a few incognito limes left hanging.
I do hope the butterflies will return to the lantana. There was a true kaleidoscope of them alight upon the blossoms some days.
Tis the season for growing compost piles, for weeding unwanted seeds from the stockpile, for starting a wishlist for next year and reflecting on the season’s passing.
I think it may be the last year for the raised beds. And I think I’ll help them go. They harbor ants nests I can’t beat back or cajole away. They permit sweet potatoes to bunker under the walls, lessening the harvest and sowing the next generation of ground cover in the same allowance.
But to do so would require remapping the irrigation installed by our predecessors. And that is not in the time budget between now and the early sowings of spring when we’ll try for more peas and beans and carrots and things.
So perhaps another year, I’ll eke out of these tiring lengths, and perhaps next winter we’ll be moving, or the kids will be old enough to require less of my ship’s side to barnacle upon which will both ease and sadden my heart, and also increase the time budget a smidge, methinks. We shall see.
So the beds will rest, the compost will grow, and the caterpillars will continue to feast like royalty upon my cauliflower dreams.
plumdirt 