The wind has dropped a limb outside my apartment building, blocking a path. Steady rain has floated decaying leaves downstream, clogging drains and creating mini-ponds in parking lots and along roadsides. I have cloistered myself inside most of the day watching the sky move from chalky gray to a black that bounces the remaining ambient lights of Christmas back down on the neighborhood. We are in deep winter in the Pacific Northwest where a week of water-laden clouds may greet us each morning and stay well into the night. For some, it becomes wearisome. Though I tire of the chill in my bones, I welcome the dampening like a trumpeter that mutes the music to soften crisp tones. It is easier to be still this time of year.
Sojourning with Grief-Bringing My Mother Home
Once, when I had a yard, I bought a packet of wildflower seeds, a mix where you scatter them and wait to see what arises from the earth. Poppies, coreopsis, wallflowers, alyssum, phlox, flax…whatever would take hold. And in my garden I had plants I set into the soil with specific intention. Roses, daffodils, lavender. This sojourn has been a scattering of seeds and in the center was the planting of one intention-to return some of my mother’s cremains to the land of her birth. Last week in the company of her two remaining cousins, I offered her back to the land. My mother-a beautiful English rose.
Nature's Gardening Lesson
I tend to be an "English Garden" style of writer. Wanting to ponder each word’s placement, making sure the color, texture and sound are pleasing and balanced. Perhaps it is my English heritage, my desire to have order in my life, my perfectionism or the many other reasons I can devise that keep me pouring over a poem, a blog post, an email even, well beyond when it is time to say “done!” However, on my Sunday morning walk yesterday, once again my teacher, Nature, suggested I try to loosen up. So I am going to be vulnerable and brave and write this blog post in one go with one edit before I post.
