New Beginnings

It's January 2, two days into the new year and I am hoping for new beginnings in 2013. 2012 ended in a whirlwind, am I am looking forward to some inner calm and serenity. My son broke his knee on September 16 and after two surgeries, he is still recovering in physical therapy. It is a daunting recovery and he is still on his journey living home with me. He had just really started walking without his crutches, when on December 12, I fell walking out of work. I was carrying too many heavy bags, wearing slippery heels, and in an instant I was down and unable to release my hands to break my fall. I saw my ankle bend and knew that it couldn't be good!  The trip to the emergency care left me with a broken fibula. A week later I woke up from surgery in a bulky cast and was told to put no weight on my left leg.

This has proven to be one of the challenges of my life. I really can't sit still for very long and I dream of just getting up and walking outside. As I make my way to let my Boxer, T-KO out the back door,  I sit in my trusty office chair (wheeling around clearly was faster than crutches!) and breathe in the crisp air of winter. To the right, in my backyard, is one of my raised bed gardens and somehow it comforts me to gaze and imagine what needs to be done there when Mother Earth starts to stretch and yawn with the coming of spring.

So that is my story. I have been sitting for three weeks now and planning my gardens seems to somehow soothe my restless spirit. This blog is really for me, as blogging has turned out to be cathartic for my soul. But readers are welcome, if they can stand my introspection, reflection and general soul searching.  Hopefully, I will end up with a history of my garden, and a glimpse of my own inner self.

Awaiting the Awakening of Mother Earth

January 1st and I find myself thinking of my garden.  I have always felt connected to the Earth, but especially when gardening. This is my attempt to record my experience--both as as a history and a spiritual journey.  My earliest memories are playfully relived on the small farm I grew up on.  Eating strawberries right off the ground, grapes off the vine and fresh rhubarb baked in a pie.  Having my own small garden outside my bedroom window, flanked by two large lilacs, where I planted flowers with my mother; the smell of lilacs still brings me back to that open window, lying on my bed, tranquil, content, dreaming of spring and all the bounty the Earth had to offer.  Spring is right around the corner, and I peacefully wait for the smell of spring that signals the awakening of terra firma.