she dreams of spring

Last year’s growth still clings to its supports, having yet to be cleared away for the fresh new shoots this year has promised to bring.

Soon it will be time to start seeds indoors, the waiting and the watching and then the nursing of baby plants along towards Spring.

This isn’t my garden, it’s a garden I pass on the trail where I run, a huge vegetable garden that someone tends very lovingly. It’s a garden I covet. Or quite possibly, what I actually covet is the time it takes to tend such a garden.

When I am old I shall grow flowers.

Okay, I already grow flowers. And I’m creeping up on old, but you know what I mean.

Some days, weeks, months, years, it feels like I’m running out of time. Time to do the things I always wanted to do, said I would do, planned to do. So what to do?

I feel my priorities shifting. I suppose everyone does as they creep towards another milestone birthday, marking the passing of another decade.

I’m going to be 50 this year, and it feels a bit like a rite of passage. It will be time to draw the slanted line through the other four hash marks, and these five decades will stand together as a unit. The next decade starts a whole new set of hash marks, and only if I’m very lucky will I complete the set.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with it, no regrets and all that, and every day I breathe in the air of gratitude that I am here to even contemplate such things.

But I feel like this year, this well-rounded marker, means it’s time to clear away those old, clingy vines, time to pull up all the weeds, time to focus on standing with my face to the sun.

Mature growth. The bits of bark that have been weathered by time. The base of the tree that supports all the fresh, green leaves.

Old growth.

Yes, that’s it. Exactly.

Already, I feel new roots taking hold.

 


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