Gardening the Nature of Patience

It’s a strange time of year, dangling between holiday festivities and the bustle of early spring.

Things seem particularly cold and bleak, especially in the upper midwest, where the weather always seems to get worse for these first few weeks of February. As Garrison Keillor said once, “February is the month that God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover feels like.”

And as I sit for my afternoon writing session, the headache and malaise is too real for me to come up with a more creative response to that than just:
“Yep.”

I don’t need to speak any more to the unusual nature of the past year, as we’ve all already heard/read/said/experienced it in just about every way it can be done. And yet, I’m looking at the mountain of seed packets and doodled garden-designs feeling a crushing ennui/angst that should be completely ordinary for a gardener.  

Every year we gardeners hit this time of year, and forget how desperately long it feels. Back in December when I was feeling all proud of myself, having gotten all my seed-orders in the moment the order-season opened, and in early January when I cleaned all the shelves and got my germination equipment organized, and then late January where I scheduled out all the seed-starting and plotted the garden locations, and now we hit the doldrums of the year (like we do every year) as if we didn’t know this was going to happen. 

It’s too early to start 99% of your seeds. 

The houseplants are fine - don’t touch them. 

No, you shouldn’t shop more mail-order catalogues. 

There is no reason to re-draw the garden plans for the eleventh time. 

I said stop touching the goddamn houseplants.

Despite the holiday season taking place in winter, a true “winter” feel doesn’t really happen then - we’re too busy, we’re too cozy, we’re too enamored, we’re too overwhelmed - whatever it is, there isn’t the true sense of stillness that winter encapsulates. So here we arrive at February, and it’s winter. Real winter. Cold winter. Still winter.

And there’s nothing to do.

-

A feast day occurs this time of year, halfway between the solstice and the equinox, known as Imbolc (St. Brigid’s Day, or Candlemas are related). Imbolc represents the end of winter in the sense that a seed is planted. 

We gardeners know that a seed planted does not mean there is a “plant”. There is a period of barren, quiet soil, where things just below the surface are preparing their entrance. Thus, just because winter is over doesn’t mean spring is here - it means we’re going to prepare the way for spring. 

I’m learning to quiet my existential impatience with small, soft observances of the idea of the Imbolc holiday. Daily walks even when, frankly, it sucks outside. Cleaning to prepare for spring. Exercise to keep the blood and breath moving. 

And patience. 

There is plenty of time to do things; if there’s anything this year has taught us, it’s to learn how to re-build our center, to find a way to be smaller, quieter, more sincere. Now that even that center is buried under 12 inches of heavy, wet snow, it’s a lesson: we are the seed, now. 

So I’m committing to work to stop the squirming and fussing. Deep clean and keep deep breathing. Bathe in the quiet. Walk in the snow. Force yourself to write, even when inspiration is a fairly empty bottle.

It’s work to remind myself to be patient - with the times, yes, with the calendar, of course, but also not to forget to be patient with myself.
Recognizing that constancy and permanence don’t happen, and everything needs its period to rest on the bare, cool ground,
drink in the icy water of snowmelt,
and - when you’re ready - stretch one long root downward and reach up.