On our most recent expedition, we discovered that the clover was blooming. Almost without thinking about it, I began making a clover chain. It was as if something deep in my brain registered all the stimuli, and that was the only acceptable response. Like how you automatically reach out to pet a cat when it brushes against your legs. Or how you lift a flower to you nose even if you know it doesn’t have a scent. It’s just what you do. So, when seated in a blooming clover patch, you make clover chains. In this particular patch, there were just enough flowers to fashion a baby head sized crown. When Babytidian trundled back by, I set the crown on his head. To my very great surprise, my hat-hating baby left it there and continued on his quest to touch the highest heights. Though his regal glory did become a bit lopsided, it remained on his head for a good thirty minutes, not even faltering during a fierce tickle battle with Daddy. I found the crown later that night, finally discarded on the kitchen floor.

We tugged the sleeves of our sweaters down and pulled our hoods up.
Only the husks of flowers remained.
We cuddled steaming mugs close to our hearts.
Blooming citrus trees made the greenhouse air thick and sweet as syrup.
Christmas cookies were made and eaten.
Frost left her red lip prints on the arugula field.
Scarves dangled from our necks.
Bare branches laced across the sky.
Lost mittens grew soggy in the cold rain.
A recipe that used the oven was an advantage, not a liability.
Pots were stacked empty against the greenhouse.
Blankets littered every comfy surface.

So perhaps it is not so much that winter forgot her lines as I forgot to listen to them.

Because I don’t have a proper garden of my own, most of my looking really ought to be called dreaming. I read seed catalogs the way other women window shop– imagining the possibilities “if only.” Instead of scrutinizing my figure or assessing the practicality of a certain pair of shoes, I gauge the amount of sunlight I have and whether or not I really need another variety of sage. Just like window shoppers, sometimes I fall prey to the “if only” thinking and buy a few packets of seeds that I know I won’t be able to grow given my space and sunlight. These packets sit there on the counter for weeks, looking hopeful in their pretty paper packages. Achingly, I come to the decision that it is waste of the highest form to let perfectly viable seeds just sit. So I give them to a friend with a garden and return to my dreaming. Please tell me I’m not the only one that does this?

This year, however, I’ve decided to take a different approach: cupboard gardening. Trust me, it’s not as trendy as it sounds. I haven’t installed a fancy hydroponic  Window Farm or even old fashioned window boxes. You’ll laugh when you see….

See? I told you.

Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother bringing the blanket at all on our backyard excursions. It’s been months since Baby-tidian has stayed on it. Even when I sit him (yes! sitting!) in the dead center like a little bull’s eye, within moments he is at the edge. Then it’s all splashing in leaves and sprinkling dirt like cinnamon.

I love observing these earliest connections he is making with nature. Like so many other discoveries at this age, it’s setting the stage from which he will play for  a long time. In these moments I’m never quite sure what my role is. Do I crunch some leaves myself? Or do I try to fade into them? Perhaps nurture my own attachment to the leaves and dirt? Today as I tried fading into his background, I was summoned back by his excited calls of “ahoo” and vigorous tongue thrusting, which could only mean one thing: a discovery. The daffodil bulbs we planted in the fall have started pushing their way through the earth.

 We always return together to the quilt, dirty knees and all. Sometimes after such adventures he is content to lay back with me and watch the leaves move. Not often though. Today we brought out a stack of stories, some to read and others to taste. Oh yes, we love our books. I only hope that he continues to show such fondness for them, even after all his teeth are in.

What’s strange is that this whole escapade took less than 45 minutes from gathering the quilt and books to changing into clean kneed clothes. I’ve had to adjust my expectations of long idyllic afternoons spent quilt-side. Even more, I’ve had to learn to acknowledge the worth of these outings. Just because the time is measured in minutes rather than afternoons doesn’t mean the time is hollow. Even just moments outside can be enough to infuse much needed grounding and balance into my day. A quick nibble of fresh air nourishes just as much as an afternoon’s feast.

So while Baby-tidian discovers the sweet smell of dirt and the glorious crinkle of dry leaves, I am discovering that length of time has little bearing on the sweetness of these moments. The leaves crinkle just as well.

Aside from making me desperately want to invest in a telephoto lens, moments like this also serve to remind me of my place. I am not all there is. I am not the only one who eats. I am not the be-all-end-all of creation. As startling as it is to come across it while surrounded by sidewalks, front doors, and mailboxes, the truth still stands that all death breeds life.

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It’s a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

So let’s make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we’re together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won’t you be my neighbor?

…

Walks this time of year are a study in contrasts. The streets are littered with still bright leaves while the skies are often murky. While most trees have long since let go of their leaves, a few clutch at them like a child who refuses to take off her tiara at bedtime. They are beautiful in their stubbornness.

The allure of decoration is widely heeded though.  Everyone from the neighbors down the street to the cacti are getting their jolly on.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/12/06/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood/feed/ 0 http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/12/02/still-life-with-autumn/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/12/02/still-life-with-autumn/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:16:08 +0000 Jana@ Collected Quotidian http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=1872 Living in the south, I  hibernate in the summer. The windows are shut tight. My limbs gets sluggish from being splayed in front of a fan for five months. Even the walls sweat here. My spirit wallows too, unable to rouse from its sticky sleep. Then summer snaps– sometimes all at once like a rubber band, and other times like a child clumsily learning to snap by rubbing his fingers together. Autumn gusts in. When the stagnant air becomes wind, I peel back the windows, inhale deeply, and begin life again. The fact that southern autumns persist well past Thanksgiving when much of the rest of the country is firmly in winter, I consider a restitution for the summer.

Fall seems to weak a word to contain this transformation. Although “fall” lends itself to some clever bulletin boards in classrooms and libraries, it only includes one aspect of this most delightful of seasons. And really, autumn is so much more than the falling leaves.

It is the smell of wood smoke unfurling across the evening air like a banner proclaiming allegiance to a new ruler. As the mosquitoes have slowly died off, we’ve been spending more evenings by the chimenea, watching the flames as if they were a drama.

Autumn is watching lettuces grow from nuggets the size of quarters to carpeting whole fields in the space of a fortnight.  I think autumn is secretly the farmer’s favorite. Even though there is still plenty to do, the pace is less dire. We find ourselves being able to stand back and admire the beauty of the farm, if only for a moment. Set against a background of velvety black earth is the iridescent wave of carrot tops, the sea of wine dark Rouge d’hiver lettuce, the dusty green crest of collards, and the dusky purple billow of Red Russian kale.

Autumn is pulling a carrot from the ground that you are positive is the archetype for all carrots. The mother carrot. The ideal of which all other carrots are just shadows. And then you take a step farther, pull out another carrot, and there it is again! The epitome of all carrots. And very soon you have a whole handful of orange perfection.

Autumn is letting your feet luxuriate in last warm days before slippers, socks, and blankets come rolling in like a northern front. I refuse to bundle up for the first few weeks of cold weather, relishing the new sensation of cold. Gradually though, all the blankets that’ve loitered around all summer find their usefulness again. The scarves are unpacked and hung by the door. Knowing the location of one’s slippers becomes a condition of getting out of bed.

Autumn is having finally said goodbye to the bright summer vegetables. It is making room on my plate for the deep green of fall. My psyche seems to be tapping into some deep ancestral craving for fresh green before winter sets in. Kale bulks up everything from soups to garlicky white beans to scrambled eggs.  Bok choy is a mild mannered partner for sassy curries. Collards sing back up to all manner of main dishes. My sink is continually full of chopped greens of some shade or other.

Autumn is relishing the warmth of the oven as you pass rather than going out of your way to avoid it. I’ve started making my own bread again, something I gladly pay someone else to to do in the summer. We’ve even fired up the oven for such unnecessary things as chocolate chip cookies. (Yes, organic carrots next to chocolate chip cookies is how we roll.)

Autumn is waking up to a find tendrils of frost on the leaves under you feet. No matter how strongly the news predicts a frost, it always surprises me to walk out with my morning basket of laundry and find that I can see my breath.

Autumn is that nap where you fall asleep wishing you had a blanket and wind up dreaming about snow tombs and giant cats. You guys get those too, right? This might be the first autumn that I’ve been both free to take afternoon naps and able to decide where I take them. Baby-tidian and I have taken our share of al fresco naps, whether in our yard in on the I Spy quilt or at the farm in hammocks.

If summer is wicker and peaches and winter is cable knit and hot chocolate, then autumn is copper and pears. Kettles start to whistle and the musk of apples and pears permeates our house. Each year we buy more apples than the last. This year we are up to three bushels, but that still doesn’t seem to be enough for preserved applesauce, juice and cider experiments, a stash of dried apples, and wanton eating out of hand. So perhaps next year it will be up to four.

Autumn is never long enough.  Like a school kid dreaming of summer vacation I spend the whole rest of the year pinning for it. But, on this second day of December,  perhaps it is time to let it go. There are good things ahead.

Will they be able to overcome such obstacles? Will Chocolate Mint try to take over the group? What will the Garlic Chives do when they find out they are twins? Is sickly Rosemary up to the challenge?  Who will “cross pollinate” with who?

Only time will tell.

After endless rain
Wind fills clean sheets on the line
My heart billows full

A time for persevering

and a time for idleness.

A time for cool baths

and  a time for warm towels.

A time for naps

and a time for… er… more naps.

A time for sun

and a time for shade.

There is a time for fire

and a time for ice.

A season  for every purpose under heaven.

Even if that season is endless summer.

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