Lessons in Stillness
The southwest corner of my basement sits empty from the end of May until the middle of September. Aside from the bags of rabbit food and cardboard chew toys that are stashed in that area, it’s a dreary, vacant space during the summer months. From October through April, however, the deep, waist-high concrete ledge in that corner has proven itself to be the perfect location to overwinter plants. Two windows let in enough light to keep most growing things happy, and other than the seasonal influx of field mice, it’s a comfortable space to wait out the winter months. It’s a good place to learn how to slow down.
There have been Octobers when a killing frost that I didn’t see coming left me with nothing to fill this area of the basement. Some years I haven’t cared. Truthfully, I was grateful and welcomed the reprieve from feeling like I was wholly responsible for keeping the world alive. Months of repeatedly dragging a hose around to the very end of its length tends to give a person a skewed sense of significance.
From May to September, slowing down never registers as an option. Bags of worm castings and Dairy Doo potting soil are hauled home with irrepressible joy before Memorial Day. Hanging baskets overflowing with ivy leaf geraniums are wedged into the back of my car along with flats of jewel-toned pansies and pots of sweet basil and orange thyme. The self-imposed routine of potting, fertilizing, watering, planting, and weeding begins with an all-in rush of energy. The sunlight feels as if it’s being filtered through gauze and humidity is non-existent. Temperatures hover in the perfection range of 72 degrees. Mosquitoes and no-see-ums have yet to begin their seasonal blood drive. I have forgotten that it does not stay this way. Several weeks later as the thermometer climbs skyward and the rain gauge fills with dust, the decline in enthusiasm begins. When hundreds of Japanese Beetles descend on my cutting garden, slowing down to appreciate the honeysuckle vines bursting with new blossoms doesn’t feel like a luxury I can afford at the moment. The idyllic lemonade afternoons that I envisioned while the ground was covered in snow just never seem to materialize.
October usually finds me exhausted and spent, staring at too many still-thriving plants in heavy pots and dreading the work that lies ahead. I mentally calculate the number of trips required to get everyone to the safety of the basement and whisper to no one, “I’m sorry, but there aren’t nearly enough lifeboats.” A culling process that should be based on the limitations of aging bones is rarely considered. Halfway down a flight of stairs is never the place to be when you realize you’ve overestimated how far you can carry an odd-shaped 40 lb. planter with foliage that completely obscures your vision. Hyper focusing on each step instead of the distance remaining between me and my destination keeps me from focusing on every muscle in my body that is screaming at my brain. Who’s in charge here? Is anyone in charge?!!! Subsequent trips and decisions about who gets a seat on the imaginary lifeboats leave me feeling a bit like Cal on the Titanic when he uttered his smug words about there being enough room for the better half. Best to get it over with, I think, as I haul tubs of unsuspecting, viable plants to their eternal resting place under a nearby oak tree. I reason that the oak tree is equivalent shelter to what they’re used to under a covered porch, and it’s supposed to rain any day. I turn away quickly and mumble my no-eye-contact goodbyes, knowing that the ice and snow of November will finish what I began.
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By the end of February, the shoulder and back pain from lugging all these plants down a flight of stairs have become a distant memory. I am thankful for these winter warriors that have survived sporadic watering and minimal sunlight in this basement corner. The first day of spring might be three weeks away, but the hands in dirt date will take a couple more flips of the calendar. The landscape vacillates between various hues of brown and gray and were it not for these summer-rich shades of green hidden away from the harsh elements, it would be easy to despair. These are the moments when October’s risky choices begin to seem reasonable. No longer overwhelmed by too many plants needing resources that belonged to a younger version of myself, every leaf, stem, and miniature blossom seem like an intricate work of art. Probably because they are. When I gather up the piles of curled, crisp leaves beneath the lemon verbena stick plants, I am instantly back in the days of summer. That something so dusty and lifeless can still hold such incredible fragrance astounds me. The book Bulbs in the Basement, Geraniums on the Windowsill: How to Grow and Overwinter 165 Tender Plants, by Alice and Brian McGowan, says that in another month or so after sparse waterings throughout the winter, I can cut the dry branches back and the lemon verbena will grow again. I have no idea if the plants know this or not. A succulent that had turned deep plum under a blistering August sun has reverted back to a glossy lime in the softer light of winter. Rosemary plants that rarely bloom here because of the too-short growing season are suddenly engulfed in tiny, delicate periwinkle flowers.
In the mid-winter quiet of a basement, these plants are teaching me how much I miss throughout the summer. With every plant shopping excursion of summer, the intricate details of petals and leaf veining are overlooked the same way that English muffins get passed over at brunch when they are set beside glazed raspberry pastries and Belgian waffles. I stuff my nursery cart happily, gluttonous after enduring months of below freezing temperatures. Starved for color beyond our two-crayon Michigan winters, it’s no surprise that self-control gets tossed to the four winds on an annual basis. But in February, with the snow piled up just beyond ground-level windows, I have nowhere to go. There is nothing pulling my attention from the intricate details and wonderous simplicity that I was too distracted to see in July.
At 64, I’m still hopeful that these winter days spent marveling over these enchantments of texture, color, and fragrance might immunize me against the over-zealous buying binges that cloud my better judgment every spring. I’m not so old that I can’t learn from past experience. A sketchy memory, however, is less promising. On the hottest, most bug-bitten and sunburnt days of summer, I wonder how gardeners who live in more temperate zones find the wherewithal to continue without the long break between growing seasons. How do they survive walking past beds that are overrun with weeds without the comfort of knowing a hard frost will eventually right the ship? Hard frosts are my saving grace and the one thing I can rely on to stop the madness for which I am fully responsible, every single year.
It has never been my nature to approach life slowly. Enthusiasm overrides sensibility every time, often with steep consequences. As a child, my mother began calling me Calamity Jane after the umpteenth time of repairing my stubbed big toe with that horrid, stinging red mercurochrome. I can still hear the exasperation in her voice even now. Could you just slow down? During my first visit to a psychic in my 40s, I was told that someone on the other side was warning me to slow down. In fact, they said it four times during my half-hour reading. I assumed some benevolent relative was trying to keep me from getting an expensive speeding ticket. I watched my speed for months. A year later when I took the tip of my thumb off on one of those guillotine paper cutting devices as I rushed to finish a project before the students came in from recess, the psychic’s words followed me all the way to the emergency room. I’m sure that whoever was trying to send a warning decided I was a hopeless case that day, throwing up their hands and requesting that they be reassigned to someone else. You think about these things when you live in the same house that your great grandparents lived in. You wonder about the universe and its vast possibilities with every creaking board and peripheral shadow. You question the odd coincidences and the robin that keeps landing on your porch railing at the same time every morning, peering at you like it has something to say. Slow down. The following winter, two hard falls on ice - both due to running on ice - were finally enough to make the message stick. Slow down.
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As I wait to see if March comes in like a lion or a lamb, these overwintering plants are teaching me how to appreciate the small wonders that exist in every season. It’s good practice for when I eventually reach the point of having to let go of all the outdoor spaces that I’m tending. Thankfully, I’m not there yet which means I still have a few years to work on the fine art of slowing down. Even in the dead of winter, I’m keenly aware that May and her come-hither temptations of fiery coral blossoms and lacy foliage are not to be underestimated. I start downsizing my coffeehouse habits in preparation for indulging my most recent fascination – native plants and the endangered insects that incredibly find their way to them. Maybe you have to get to the other side before you are finally rescued from the notion that more means happier. Maybe you have to leave this world before you realize that you’ve always had enough. In the meantime, I’m learning to appreciate winter and its forced lessons in stillness. I’m learning. Slowly.