Blessed and Mundane

I'm going to Vail for my birthday weekend. Darn.

But I forgot half of it and don't remember where I found it.

This post was supposed to be a series of before and after photos of the garden, but I haven't taken the afters yet. I have to finish the work first. I can't stall for long-- there's a deadline on the tea garden. I'm having a party in it during the first week of May. And the rest of the vegetables have to go in soon or I'll run out of growing season.

Soon, though. Piles of dirt and stone are turning green whether or not I get the soil mixed. The garden behind us keeps sending up volunteer violets and little blue flowers I don't recognize in the herb bed. Mads brings the flowers to me by the fistful and we watch them wilt in the tiny clay vase that sits on the kitchen sill.

I have asparagus and tomatoes and peppers and a dozen other things to plant. The peas sprouted and are reaching for the trellis. Once this storm clears I'm heading back out to sink some containers for mint and chammomile and lemon balm. Maybe I can convince the big kid to help me dig up rocks. And maybe I'll settle for a cup of violet tea and a chat, instead.

The change from summer to fall to winter is a rocky one, here. We have perfect 70`F and bright sun one day, 20`F and snow followed by more perfect days a week later. The leaves didn't really have a chance to change color before falling: they hit the ground green and change to brown as they waited for us to rake them. (The back yard is still waiting. Ahem. Those are headed for compost and garden beds, though, so that's okay.) I sometimes tease the native Coloradoans about their monotone fall- golden- which is lovely really but makes me pine for the crimson reds and flaming oranges of the northeast. I miss the Hudson Highlands something fierce this year.

Fall is usually my favorite season. I love the leaf change. I love the anticipation leading up the holidays and I love winter squashes and baking and the chill in the air. I like hikes and long walks with a good stiff breeze at my back.

This year I'm resisting it. We hardly had a summer- only a handful of days above 90`F, and a lot of gray sky. (I should not complain, after all those years back East: we still had ten times the sunshine, and I like the gray days anyway). Two weeks ago I bought a handful of house plants at a nursery sale and split them into a dozen pots. Now I'm poking at them every day wishing they'd grow faster so I can split them again and cover every last window sill. I have no idea where my gloves and hats are, which is stupid of me. I've already needed them more than once. I'm already planning next year's gardens and household projects (including painting the downstairs green).

I'm planning more stories, too, which is another shift for me. I'm mostly a pantser when it comes to short stories, but it's not working at all for novels. During a writers group meeting a few weeks ago, I realized the problem I'm having with Solace is really two-fold: I'm stuck in short story mode (which is, for me, a completely different kind of mindset) and I don't get the kind of time I need to focus for novel mode. It's odd for me to be planning more shorts and pantsing the novels, but I needed to try something to get going again. (And no, not NaNoWriMo. We travel the last week of November, every year, and while I applaud the rest of you for doing it, I know better than to put myself through it. Much as I love the idea of it.)

Until the last year or so I was fine working with tiny pieces of time. I had more of them, for one, and managed to get the bigger ones sometimes, too. I'm still figuring out how to get them again, and figuring out how to manage this tendon that keeps pretending to heal and gets worse again, and re-orienting myself after spending a year preparing for and adjusting to another baby. I'm resisting the seasons change because I am tired of changes and adjustments and shifts, and am ready for things to just stay quiet for a while. Maybe winter won't be so bad after all.

"The Wingie" is now live at The Town Drunk. I'm really fond of this story, and quite pleased with how it turned out after a few rounds of edits.