Shaking off the dormancy and complaints of winter
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- April 23, 2018
- 1489
The grass. It’s growing in snow and rain and freezing frost. I’ve been watching it out my window, the greenness of it becoming brighter by the day between sips of coffee. It knows its time and season, no matter April snow showers.
The complaints about the weather have been hot and heavy, weariness of winter (even though we sit inside spring) coming out in tired bursts. We live in Ohio, where snow can surprise us in May, yet each year we forget, judging Mother Nature for doing what she does every single year.
I never tire of snow, fat flakes falling gently down onto brilliant green grass. It’s the in-between, the faint line we stand on, and so soon it will be hot, and we will be inside complaining of the heat.
I am a winter person, though I enjoy the warmer months. The dormancy of winter, the nesting of oneself in preparation of warmth. I hibernate with the best, snuggling deep inside my blanket for warmth.
I sit at my writing window and hold tightly to myself the scenes of cold and density, allowing my home to become a haven and resting point, a shield, so to speak. I dream of summer days on back roads, the scent of heat coming off the ground, sandals and tank tops and warm caressing wind. But I don’t need it until it's ready to arrive; I do not long for it.
Each season has its length and breadth, and tiring of it only makes you cranky and impatient. If we’re not enjoying the season we’re in, we’re only ever seeking the next, which remains just out of our grasp. We grow discontent, not embracing our now.
My very favorite season is fall, when the skies grow deepest blue and you can smell winter on your tongue, deepening its approach. Fall, when the colors grow intense and your chest could burst with its wonder, the crunchiness of leaves as they spin around you, wrapping you in their wondrous color. I sit on my porch until I can’t take the cold anymore, and I let the season envelop me, each moment what it should be.
But today it is spring, and even though the weather doesn’t reflect it every day, I can know with assurance that its arrival is imminent. The grass is darker in the places that it grows incessantly, places where it’s wetter and seemingly more fertile. The ornamental grass, the one that spreads across my side garden like wildfire, is popping up with the rains that we’ve had, growing steadily.
I don’t have many daffodils planted, and I need to remedy that. Bulbs I can do, self-sufficient things that return each year with little to no support from me. I envision a merry profusion of them planted in my front perennial beds, strategically placed so they’ll surprise me with their wonder every spring.
There are some in my back garden, cheery yellow leftovers from someone who lived here before us, someone whose hands pushed them deep into the soil, startling me with each year they survive. I survey them and know I am as hearty as they are, even though digging in the soil isn’t my forte, even though I lament when yard work season rolls around, the flowers and sun not lamented, just the work I don’t enjoy.
I look ahead though, and I feel the lush grass between my toes, the sun pleasant on my skin. I am ready for our patio chairs to be circled and placed, the cushions dusted off from garage storage. The nurseries are stocked and await my presence, though I don’t get myself around to container planting until late May, sometimes early June.
I’ll load up my tray with posies and remember how much Mom loved buying annuals in spring, having already had other things delivered from catalog orders she placed in deep winter.
She could never wait until the catalogs arrived, her pen ready to write down new things to plunge into the beloved dirt around her house; this year spring has arrived without her. I didn’t inherit her love of gardening, but I love the finished product. And that’s enough for me.