The sky is grey and rain cascades like a watery veil down from gutters where too many maple leaves have come to roost. My tendency would be to despondency as the green season is most definitely passing but when my eyes are drawn down, I see a carpet of rich gold across the landscape. If you really try, the colour wraps us in a final shout-out of beauty. Yes, look for the sublime in the everyday.
My mood though is compounded by the awareness that Phase Two of the pandemic is upon us and the coming winter will be tough in so many ways. Tough in that we’re still pummeling a virus curve against the dreaded outcomes of COVID; that we’re holding onto hope by not hugging each other; that we’re closing in our social circles because we care so very much. And we do care.
This morning I heard an interview on CBC with Tim Robbins (loved his Shawshank Redemption role!) about a new project where he and his team are exploring how to create a community online to affirm we are sane in interesting and turbulent times – COVID and political. He’s adamant that this time ought to be looked at as an opportunity for creative incubation. “I think it’s important that we create forums of communities where you can listen to something, you can laugh and you can understand you’re not alone,” he said. Well, I like that! Welcome back to the blog-a-sphere! (OK, he was talking about podcasts but moving along…)
Ahem. A slight narrative deviation – apologies. As much as I’d like to mope and wax poetic about the emotional turmoil of grey daze, my constant feline companion and apparently editor, Furgus, is saying it’s purr-fect. In fact, he may indeed take over the typing of this very post – with cats, one can never really know.
Onto the green reaping that has led me to think that incubation will indeed develop into taste-filled winter nights where we will relax and enjoy any sublime moment at hand.
Case in point – I’m perfumed! The smell of mint is on my hands and stitched fragrantly throughout my clothing. I’ve pulled out hunks of leaves from three medium-sized pots that had basked all summer against an east facing brick wall. Ok – it’s true – these lovelies were deliberately corralled by me in terracotta pots as they are notorious for spreading their mint-ness throughout the garden if left in the ground. Delicious fiends! Now the peppermint, Mentha x piperita; chocolate, Mentha × piperita “chocolate”; and Mojito mints – Mentha x villosa, have been chopped into small pieces, encased with water in ice cube trays and slipped into the freezer. Phase Two winter months were just made more palatable with green sunshine in a tiny block of ice! Fun to think about who would enjoy these treasures with us – oh, that will be us. Well then, all good.
You know there’s no story without an understory, right? That freezer was an adventure – an unanticipated purchase due to a great harvest brought about by an intense COVID homestay. An intense homestay for months where we watched every growth spurt, every fruiting. We were so glad we had basic arithmetic skills and determined that the cost for the freezer was justified as it cost less than than that terrific road trip we had planned for the eastern coast of Canada this year. As the times had appliances like freezers coming up short on the display floors, we were thrilled to find one – still in its cardboard box – kind of waiting for us at the local hardware emporium. We quick-stepped gleefully out to the rented van to ensure the freezer was ours and ours alone. Warning. Do not get between a gardener, worried about a most excellent harvest, and her desired storage unit!
The freezer interior has transformed into a treasure chest of green memories…er…anticipation. Must stay future focused! Soon, very soon, it will hold most of the green tomatoes I shook off the desiccating vines of summer. Leaving them longer on the vine made no sense with frost threatening, flurries foretold, and energies waning. The squares of cilantro, Coriandrum sativum, are frozen in extra virgin olive oil with garlic and honestly, can you imagine the sizzle from that frying pan as the snow comes down outside? The flattened bags tempt with deep red hues – roasted tomatoes processed with sweet basil, Ocimum basilicum, and rosemary, Salvia rosmarinus, while other containers hold whole and cubed red tomatoes. The green icy mounds are peppers chopped and ready for a soup or stir fry. Sage, Salvia officinalis, is now drying on a pantry knob while oregano, Origanum vulgare, will soon join it. What a potential explosion of taste just waiting for creative cookery magic and deep winter nights. Cucina Italiana feasts? Bring ‘em on!
Those nights when the fire is on, the ice lining the edge of the window and the hooks near the back door holding damp toques, mitts, scarves and, well you know, masks. Those nights are when I’ll close my eyes and taste the green season again and maybe, just maybe, wax poetic about gardening daze and marvel at the ability of memory to ignore the twinge in the knee and the ache in the back. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll celebrate the surrounding community and those away at two-arms length or more. We know we’re not alone in this time, we’re just developing a new way of being for all of us. For now.
Spirit of the garden 