The change of seasons makes me oddly happy/sad. We've had our first hard frost and my beautiful garden has turned into dark green (soon to be black!) slime. I did however harvest about 40 pounds of beautiful Yukon Gold potatoes this weekend. And I did get three red, ripe tomatoes this year! This gardening in northern climes is not for the faint-hearted... In some way I am relieved that the garden is finished for this year. It is a tremendous amount of work and although I love it, this ending will give me more time to participate in other things I love, like weaving and painting.
A lesson in letting go, in staying in the moment, in not wishing away today for another, "better" tomorrow. Every year I resist the coming of winter- the snow, the ice, the bitter cold. And every year, on the first day it snows, I am filled with the beauty of it, the sheer exhilarating joy of it. Winter is the time for hot tea, a fire in the woodstove, a chance to be inside my life.
In the warm, long, sunny days of summer and fall I can’t stand to be inside. I work inside and the second I get home I change out of my school clothes and into my play clothes. And I play. Usually I play until dark- in high summer that is about 10:30 at night. Mundane chores like dishes and housework generally go undone, unnoticed. “Cooking dinner” consists of grabbing a sandwich or a piece of fruit (or really, sometimes a Pop Tart!) and eating it standing over the sink (this is a time saving tip- little to no clean up with this method!) and then racing back outside to mess with the horse or the goats or the garden. Summer is all about people visiting, building projects and outdoor activity.
Winter is different. Slower. Quieter. Interestingly enough, people don’t come out to visit us in the winter. The building projects are buried under a blanket of snow. And outdoor activities are pretty much reduced to snow shoeing to work and feeding the animals. Oh yes, and moving snow. Indoors becomes quietly attractive. Suddenly being inside all day Saturday doesn’t seem a punishment. Now is the time for art. For painting, weaving, writing. For nourishing that part of my soul.
Fall is the harbinger of all this nourishment. My favorite time of year.
And it makes me oddly happy/sad.
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“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” -Albert Einstein