Greeting Summer

The Garden as both clock and calendar...

I’m watching the light dance in a spiderweb outside my window this morning, listening to the chipmunks announce what can only be the arrival of Baby King Horus the First onto their scene by the rock wall, and taking in the glittering morning light through the big maples.

It’s a Sunday and there’s nobody here to ‘serve’ but the Hollyhocks and Winter Squash and seed potatoes. They are all patiently awaiting being rescued from their tiny, plastic pots and brown paper bags and gifted with a place to settle in for the summer. They’re looking to land like the rest of us.

I’ve said before (and probably will again) that things in the North Country go really, really slow until they go really, really fast. The grip of winter can hold on for what feels like forever and then, once the garden is in, whelp, hold on to your hat because before you can truly settle in and enjoy it, the Goldenrod will burst yellow and bring with it an announcement that ‘winter is coming (again).’

But wait…

Staying slow as time speeds up is some of what the medicine of the South is asking of me.

MEMORIZE THIS FEELING.

MEMORIZE THIS SCENT.

BE RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW.

Like the black flies, Summer’s first bite can feel anestehized in a way. Numbing me to the reality that it’s finally here and I actually made it. Only by mid-July do I trust that it’s not going to snow again and, by then, sometimes I’ve missed the tenderest part of the season. Really dropping into Summer can feel challenging when the temperature is fluctuating demanding jackets and tank tops, the calendar is throbbing, the lawn needs mowing, and as my body ages…

Yea, she’s aging.

So, it can be easy to just slide into the rhythm of long light frenzy and joyful dirty feet exhaustion and wake up in October but that’s not the plan this year. This year I decided to exercise some maturity and not try to build the airplane while I’m flying it while it’s filled with people!

I took some stuff off my plate. Some big and important stuff. Some stuff I absolutely love. Some stuff that sustains me and Rootstock. I put it down, doubled up on help even in the letting go, and called in lushness and spaciousness and time.

Unfortunately one of the legs of the stool opted to depart before things got really good but, thankfully, the choice to simplify things has still permitted some degree of rest and spaciousness. It’s still early June and I’ve already done more summer than I might have in the past 3 years.

This year, with my gardens well-established and my world turning (mostly) as I have designed it to, I want to drink in every moment of this honey-sweet season and let it tenderize and open me and utterly soften me.

Every morning, afternoon, and evening there are ‘hellos.’

Walking through the gardens to greet the arrival of the alien irises, the flowers on the mullein, the tender shoots of broom corn just peering out from under their blanket. Every afternoon a wander to give water and see if I can watch the sunflowers stretch and turn. Every evening a lap to say thank you and goodnight to the last petals of the last tulip, the last red poppy, the last fringe of the dazzling lace that was this year’s rhubarb queen.

Drinking in the magnificent peach and purple of the Verbascum is a yearly ritual around now. I welcome her with excitement and joy and she spires up and waves back with the kiss of a soft breeze. I think she looks forward to seeing me too.

Letting the hypnotic red of the Poppies remind me of magic and far away places that are hard and beautiful like this place, I’m in awe that somehow, somewhere these red petals just nest in the Earth all year long somehow until it’s time to explode with color.

Getting lost in the sacred geometry of the soft Mullein, standing amazed that some Tulips insist on still blooming, negotiating with the colts foot and bishops weed in an effort to call a truce…these moments of greeting and conversation with this place are the only way I have found to exit the thrush of time passing and be here now.

The garden is both clock and calendar but it’s a portal too. A portal out of time and out of space. It’s a remembering and a homecoming and a family reunion.

As the sun gets higher it’s time to go see who’s blooming.

Who knows, maybe today it’ll be me!