There was a time that i would have looked at this swathe of snow and seen the imprint of something beautiful that was to come. A beauty now dormant but one that would burgeon and leaf out. I would have imagined the life beneath the snow, the millions of microorganisms seething with life - beneath the soil’s surface.....
But now, I must admit - I am having trouble - as I understand so many others are too - seeing the beauty here - seeing anything more than a painful glaring light and a crust of snow and frigid temperatures and feeling anything more than frozen - and believing in an eventual thaw, and renewal.
What a time of crisis and paralysis - and one that seems to go on and on. And yet so many of us in the US continue to be so fortunate. I do know this. To date, my biggest malaises have been a loss of hope, and lots of hand-wringing at the state of our nation and the state of justice in our nation, and some loneliness and longing for long, leisurely dinners with friends, where lovely meals and wines are consumed over a period of many long hours… I am aware of how privileged this makes me.
So in that sense, I know I am lucky if that, and some fits and starts to my small business and a closure of my husband's has been the worse of what we have endured.
In many ways I have benefited from this dormancy... I have allowed myself a belated maternity leave - one that as a self-employed woman with a small business, living in one of the most expensive cities in the US - I never really got to fully enjoy. And I have had the joy of watching my son, from 3.5 to 5.25 yrs of age, be the opposite of dormant. I have watched him unfold and unfurl - as though watching a time lapse of a sapling budding out in spring - albeit a sort of strange sci-fi sapling which never stops putting out growth - who keeps unfurling and budding out before my very eyes.
And so I am looking very much to him - at him - now for hope. Trying to remember all the dormant life that will - undoubtedly, and unstoppably burgeon forth in spring. I am dreaming of and planning my contribution to all this - my permaculture farm and homestead... My cultivation of wild and native plants for cut flowers and cooking. My plans to grow flowers and food and food in ways that will invite wildlife, conserve soil, nurture the planet and my family and sustain our small businesses. I am thinking of my son, of harnessing the energy of his unstoppable growth that bucks any dormancy whatsoever, except for those 10.5-11 hours of his seemingly drunken and motionless slumber every night where a quiet and calm come down over the house like a thick blanket of snow.
These are sad times. We must lasso what energy and hope we can. We must think of all the varied and messy life around us, how it teems on within the frozen earth as steadily as the peepers in our wetlands in spring, or the chorus of crickets in summer - even if it is all frozen to silence right now.
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