Winter Dreams

The snow that was softly coming down yesterday has turned into a undulating blanket of white today. It is only 12 degrees!

One of the things I usually do at this time of year is to start ordering seed catalogs or look up seed suppliers to start planning my indoor garden in the spring. This year will be different. I am holding off because my seed and plant needs will be different by the time we get into the heart of growing season up here which is June and beyond. After six years in my little home three stories up into the trees, I am moving. By this time next year I will be living in an even tinier two-room-with-bath space that my daughter is creating in her home. Yes, folks, I’m moving in with my kid!

There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that I’m not getting any younger and knowing that I have family on the other side of the door is huge to me. The other selling point is that she has a yard where I can create a small, raised garden, and a front porch where I can feed and watch the local animals, and just relax. It has been years since I had a porch to sit on and contemplate life, and it has been something I have sorely missed, having grown up with one as a child. I used to sit for hours on that porch when I was a youngster, notebook in hand, making up stories and documenting my deepest secrets and dreams for the future.

So this year I will not be looking at seed catalogs. I will be looking at raised bed kits, and small movable greenhouses, and purchasing plants to fill both of them. I'll still keep a tiny indoor garden next to my writing space for those cold days next winter, like today, when the sight of something green and growing gives me hope for the eventual arrival of spring. I will be so busy planning and dreaming that I will forget how cold it is outside and the time will fly by. Before you know it, spring will be here and along with the new buds on the trees a new home and a new life will be blooming as well.

And so it is.