on lacing life with color

The grey months are coming, and I look to them with a mix of longing and trepidation. There are so many things I love about winter, I just wish it could be a bit shorter. But no matter, just now there is color and contrast on the cusp of November, many trees are bare, especially up here at the top of this hill, but others are holding on to their color, clinging to it, really, not ready to let go of another year’s palette.

Mother Nature is a magical painter.

October was a month of scurrying, like a squirrel packing away sustenance. Getting things done in a rush and flurry, because November will be busy in other ways, and this year will fly off into the next before I can catch my breath. But that’s what winter is for, here, nights by the fire and days lit by the sparkling gift of snow.

It’s so easy to talk myself into loving winter in October. By March I will be singing a different tune, and longing for the first hint of green. But that is what I love about the seasons, each one so distinct, with the comfort of their pattern woven in to the tapestry of years.

The forest of kisses that kept me company all summer long is gone. The purple monskhood outside my window is fading quickly, the last bit of color in the landscape of change. I didn’t know, when I planted it there without thinking all those years ago, that it would become my favorite bit of autumn. It’s a plant that asks only to be left alone, a plant that performs without coaxing. There have been times when it has bloomed through the year’s first snow.

We’ve become old friends, perennial sisters, moving through life together.

Bloom, rest, grow, bloom again. Each step in the process just as vital as the next.

The lesson my garden keeps trying to teach me, in whispers and in shouts as loud as the red of this dogwood’s branches.

I listen, I ignore, I listen. I force myself to pay attention.

I learn.

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