I am not a fan of winter. An odd thing to say, perhaps, for a woman living in Southwest Michigan, but it’s quite true. Other than the occasional deep fluffy snowfall that makes me believe for a moment that I’m living in a snowglobe, I find no pleasure in the cold, the ice, the slick, the cold, the slush, the crunch, the scraping – did I mention the cold? But without a doubt, I am grateful for winter. I don’t usually admit that, certainly not during the polar vortex also known as January, but I am. Very grateful.
If we didn’t have winter, if we didn’t have four or five months of it, I’m not sure I would ever appreciate with appropriate depth the signs of spring. I first heard the peepers last Wednesday. I actually stopped my car and sat by the side of the road with windows down and just listened, soaking up the sound. Nothing quite says “spring!” like a chorus of frogs.
The sprouts that I started downstairs are all starting to grow. That is a delight unto itself for sure. It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny seeds can provide such growth, such subsistence, such joy just in the process of creating fruits, vegetables and flowers. I even have marigolds coming along nicely this year. A simple flower that I’ve never been able to sprout well from seed before.
We’ve had unusually nice weather and I was able to get out into the garden on more than one occasion. The sound of the tiller, the smell of the damp earth, the feel of the loamy soil as I plant each seed…it brings me such peace. The birds always serenade my time in the dirt and it did my heart good to hear all the melodies from the branches. Rhubarb is starting to shoot through. It won’t be long before we spy our first asparagus. James joined me yesterday and got a couple beds ready for planting. By the end of the afternoon, peas were in the ground.
James and I cherish our days spent together in the garden, or in the yard, or in the woods, or around the property. Even when we are working at opposite ends of the garden beds, we still feel a connectedness as we prepare and plant and sow and reap together. We also appreciate our different passions, as he gets giddy about running the water lines and setting up the trellises, while I am happiest scooching down the rows on my rear, talking to the seeds as I plant each one.
A year ago, our world shut down. We had no idea then what we had in store for us, nor could we have predicted perhaps how long we would stay away from our families, away from our friends. And while this winter’s weather left us with little to complain about, the compounding isolation from the pandemic during winter makes this spring feel especially freeing. Even if we still aren’t seeing our families regularly. Even if we aren’t able to do all the “normal” activities, time spent in the sun, with the earth in our hands, listening to the creatures of the world, we feel healed. And lucky. And blessed. By all these little things.
Blessed Little Things 