Tag: Nature

Resting in Winter

This morning is a cold one and usually I might complain. But this year I am reminding myself, again, that the coming winter and its colder temperatures with less daylight serve a vital purpose for nature and for me. One purpose is the same, it is a time to rest and rebuild.

Every year about this time a group of black birds settle in South Bend for a week or so, although some days it seems longer because of all of their cawing and screeching. I remember the first time that I noticed the ravens. I was sitting on the couch in my living room, talking to a friend on the phone. A landline, albeit cordless. I looked outside and saw dozens of birds settled in the intersection outside my window, in the street, and pecking at the ground. It was a bit terrifying because there were so many of them, and it reminded me of the scenes from the Hitchcock movie The Birds, where they descended on a town and started attacking people. However, maybe this area is just part of their migration path because they don’t stay long. For them, passing through town, likely led by the winding St. Joe River, is innate and part of an annual ritual.

For years I would bemoan the approach of winter, fretting over the cold and lack of sunshine, and I almost felt forced to stay inside. Two things helped me to change my mindset. The first was my growing love for gardening. Once I saw the winter as a respite for nature and an opportunity for the world above ground to be silent while my perennials preserved energy, I accepted that winter’s cold was part of the process and I could relish what was quietly happening underneath the frozen soil. I would look at the bare trees and think, “just resting, they will be back.”

Another purpose of this season was revealed at a winter retreat I went on in early 2018. I was going through a hard time, kind of low, and the gloomy days did not help. What I did was counterintuitive – instead of heading to a tropical beach, I went to the Berkshires for a week of winter hikes, workshops, and rest. I learned how to identify the tracks of animals moving about in the snow and realized that I did not have to shut myself in because it was cold, I just need to dress for it.

Our home is nearly decorated for Christmas, with lots of reds and greens, Nativity scenes, trees of varying sizes, Grinch decorations, and lights, so many lights and candles. This year has been such a busy one and it is time for me to slow down and enjoy this season. There will be some holiday gatherings, but I am also leaving time to write, sew (now that I finally got a new machine) and learn how to sit still without cooking up the next project. One of my brothers once teased that me and another brother are “always looking for something to do.” That quality has served me well but in this season, I am going to hush the small voice that tells me I could get one more thing done, that the goal is constant productivity and doing. It is not always easy, but I am learning. 

In a few weeks I will share some of my favorite reads of this year, but here is one that might help others who struggle with winter. The book is How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz. In the meantime, I hope you can enjoy some of the stillness that comes with this time of year.

Peace,

Ramona

A Snowy Day

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A snowy day here in northern Indiana. Days like this are perfect for writing, and if it warms up, venturing outside, even if it’s only to open the front door and take it all in. Stay warm!

 

snowymorning

My Encounter with an Owl

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This weekend we change our clocks, and in less than two weeks it will officially be spring. If you have ever had that feeling that someone is following you, tiptoeing to catch you by surprise, that is how I feel about the coming of spring. It is windy today and the first daffodils are in bloom. I am visualizing how my yard will be in full bloom midsummer, mentally plotting where I will plant the three hydrangea bushes I ordered, and considering how I can spruce up my screened-in porch. I have decided to not wait until it gets warm to sit out there; all I need is a good chair and a blanket. A peaceful way to start my day.

Last week I looked outside and saw something moving in a corner near a large urn that sits on the porch. It was grayish, not the brown of the dried hydrangea blossoms that I placed in a bundle in a wooden bucket last fall. Continue reading →

Yard Work is Meditation

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spring grass in sun light and defocused sky

As I get older, I am becoming more like my grandfather.  I needed a break after writing and went out for a walk when my true inclination is to get ice cream. It is hot today, in the 90s, and my day started early, probably in the same manner that my grandfather would have started a sweltering summer day — early, and in the garden.

Like a farmer or gardener who has learned to become familiar with rain forecasts and the path of the sun as the day passes, I know that if I want to work in the lower part of my backyard, the section filled with daisies, hosta, violets and peony leaves, I need to be out there early, before the sun has swept over the tall trees and the neighbor’s fence. Today’s project was simple — weed the flowerbeds, yank up the vine with its slender tendrils that thicken and choke the less resilient plants. I had chopped some limbs off a bush a few days ago, but left the shorn branches in the yard, so those need to be carried off to the yard waste bin.

On days like this I recall my grandfather’s yard, his backyard in particular. The lawn, though small, was always neatly trimmed, the geraniums and petunias spilled out of pots and whirly-gigs spun around at the slightest of breezes. He had summer parties there until the year before he passed away. He was always busy in that yard, tending to a plant, painting a chair that needed a refresh, working a little bit every day. If I happened to stop by, he would offer me a drink of something cool and there were always nuts or candy in the dish on the cocktail table in the living room.

Always a fine dresser, on those days I would catch him in his work clothes, a pair of old chinos, a tee shirt, worn but never raggedy. I wonder if working in the yard was as meditative for him as yard work has become for me.

I could call what I do gardening, but I prefer the phrase yard work; it captures the honor of simple labor and tending to nature. Every time I go outside, I feel a deeper connection to the earth, and to God. When I was little I played outside but never got really dirty; childhood allergies and asthma gave me a pass from outside labor.

But now I love the work, the dirt under my nails, the recognition of what is plant and what is called weed, the sharp tools, each one designed for a purpose. I like my three pairs of gloves, red, yellow and gray, and know that on some days I will be so immersed in my work that two pairs might get soaked from working in a dewy patch or digging in the moist soil. No bother, I simply set them out to dry in the sun and grab the third pair.

I am learning to accept the bugs, bees, and butterflies that coexist to make my little patch thrive. I laugh when I remember how I jumped the first time I saw a toad sitting in a cool spot near the back fence, too sluggish to move away, but seeming to say, this is my home too.

After a morning in my backyard, as the sun rises to the point where the shade is no more and the rays are making me sweat, I decide that I have done enough for one day and it is best to stop before I get too hot, too tired, or the work becomes a chore and the element of calm dissipates. I have learned that this translates to other areas of my life, learning when I have done enough, and can stop to rest.

I take a shower, have a light breakfast and then I am ready to work some more, only this time at my desk. I can write now. And when I am done with the day’s writing, I will walk again. When I think of my yard work and walking, that is when I feel connected to my grandfather. He never owned a car, preferring to take the bus, walk, or when he was older, had his children drive him to the grocery store or run errands.

Tomorrow I will start my morning in the front flowerbed, picking out the plants that will otherwise overtake the others, watering the roses, sniffing the basil that is in a small container on my front step. I will fuss over the two pots of ornamental grass that I rescued from the twenty-five cent rack at the garden store, and look for a small sign that they are recovering from a lack of water and too much sun.

I will be grateful for this small connection to the earth, remember my grandfather and begin the day’s work.