The kale, spinach, and snow peas are spent. Totally spent. Burned, bloated, skeletized, and gone to seed. And it all happened right around the Summer Solstice, which pleases me to my bones. It’s fitting that springtime vegetables should bow out just as the hottest season takes center stage.
So yesterday I ripped them out of the soft, silky earth and heaped all the faded green, leafy remains into a large hay bucket (also green). One raised bed plus half of another are now ready to be re-imagined. Redesigned. Repurposed. This kind of opportunity is always equals parts thrilling and intimidating to me.
Mostly, it makes me sad, this passage of time and loss of gorgeous food. Time slips away too easily these days. And so many resources are wasted.
What do we have to show for most of our days? For what lasting treasure do we redeem these hours, days, weeks? Months and years?
I want it to count. Really count.
At least with these spent vegetables, I have the sweet consolation that our chickens will eat it all greedily. And they certainly did, yesterday evening at sunset. They dove into the heaps of wilted greens and tore it all apart, clucking and dancing and zeroing in on stowaway bugs I hadn’t even noticed.
It’s Monday morning now, and once again Oklahoma has opened her eyes to a soaking rainstorm. Every lawn is emerald green and every lake is rising steadily. We all get a fresh new week with a clean slate! It’s like a tiny little New Year’s Day, opening to us all the possibilities of accomplishment, relief, satisfaction, and dreams come true. Plus, thanks to the rain, we don’t have to water anything.
Whatever your goals, I wish you abundant energy and meaningful inspiration to work toward them. Whatever your heart’s desire, I wish you unexpected miracles and little, encouraging doses of the bigger things yet to come. Live in the light of possibility this week. Stay vigilant so that your hours and days are traded for good things. Amazing things. Your life is so valuable, and it passes by so quickly.
“The flower that you hold in your hands was born today and already it is as old as you are.”
~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943
XOXOXOXO
And here I thought I was the only one obsessing over the passage of time. It sort of hurts, doesn’t it? A lot sometimes.