New Shoots

The sun has been out several days in a row, and for the most part the temperatures have actually stayed above freezing. Last night and today is a major rainstorm – but it is above freezing, and (relatively) warm. Some of the snow is beginning to melt and some of my gardens are beginning to reappear. Though there are still a lot of snow filled spots and icy patches it is much easier to walk around outside. 

 March this year was terrible...the freeze/ thaw cycle kept things so icy I actually couldn't get to work twice this year in March. In spite of the multitude of great things going on so far this year it has felt exceptionally hard and the winter has felt incredibly long. Everything is subjective, even when you know that objectively it is not so bad. 

It seems that spring might be moving back in, finally.

 As always, I have high hopes for setting a pace this year, but my moods and enthusiasm seem as fickle as the weather. I really am trying to write again – I have so many partial articles done for my Patreon page...and I know I'm not a brilliant writer, but I'm not a horrible one either. I just can't put something up that is in as rough a shape as most of them are. I am finding it difficult, especially on bad days, to make reasonable sentence structures out of bits of thoughts. I am bereft of terms and phrases – it is like part of my memory disk has been corrupted. As an example, for weeks now I cannot hold onto the phrase “freezing rain”. When I think about what has been happening outside I come up with “icy rain” or “icy bits” but the words “freezing rain” escape me entirely. 

 

I have faith that it will all come back into focus, and my brain and body will begin to reawaken as the weather warms, but the wait feels interminable. So I'm trying to tend the new shoots as they appear, do the work I can as it comes and be patient. Writing when the words come, as much as is possible, doing a lot of the “zen of chain”, waiting for the ice to melt in the slack tub and pushing to do the pressing things in fits and starts. Baby steps, like seeds swelling, but not yet ready to burst forth new shoots into the ground. Having faith that something is, in fact, better than nothing and knowing that I'm not alone in this place, this endless waiting that makes time slow to a crawl while at the same time it disappears before it has even been acknowledged. The mere fact that it is, in fact April already...the winter stayed forever, but where did it go? 

 

 So soak up the sun, the moisture, and the nutrients as they come, because I have a feeling that once those shoots begin to unfurl the pace is going to end up rivalling the speed of light.   I know I'll need every ounce of what I have to keep up.