A Time to Prepare

Winter. A time for the Earth to rest, to gather its energy for spring's dramatic entrance into the continual cycle of birth, growth, decline, death ... and rebirth. Winter. The ashes of the Phoenix, from whence all things arise. Winter.

Sucks.

I can't paint - the house is closed up tight and even the low-VOC stuff stinks. I can't garden - I like my fingertips (and nose tip and toe tips) just the way they are, thank you very much. I can't even go for long walks very often - and the first person who says "treadmill" I will have to punch. I could sledge-hammer walls or tear out the old, old plumbing, but then I'd have none, and I doubt if the Big Lug would like a see-through house.

In the absence of destruction, I need something to build. Anything. I've planned (garden, layout, projects) and I've prepared (raspberries on that good day, clearing space, boxing things up) and I've organized (tax files, cookbooks and magazines, schedules) and I've read about going green, best-value renovations, and more how-tos and tips than I either knew or cared existed. Until I can do something with it all, it's just churning beneath the surface like magma, ready to erupt.

And yet it's winter. All I can do is read, and plan, and organize, and sort. I know it's necessary, really I do. But it's time to burst already.

I wonder if my cherry tree feels this way, all itchy and anxious after getting the hint of warmth then the frigid blasts. I wonder if she's poised on her metaphorical toes, as I am, waiting for that stupid starter's pistol to finally, finally crack. I know she puts on an amazing - and seemingly instantaneous - show every spring. Yet she doesn't have to figure it out, or sort through all potential leaf-and-petal formations, or even exercise her branches so she doesn't throw anything out of whack. She just ... becomes what she truly is.

I almost envy that kind of simplicity, that kind of certainty.

Don't you?