Winter holidays are often like pushing the reset button. Our gardens and lives wind down in response to the weather and the shortening days, and we brace ourselves for the cold, quiet months that will follow seasonal festivities. As the shortest day of the year passes us by, we catch up with relatives and friends, and we start to think of the year ahead.
This season has been a particularly intense one for me — from an onslaught of COVID cases amongst friends and family and the loss of several old friends, including a talented young writer and mother whom I have known since my early days in publishing, to a difficult diagnosis of a beloved member of my family and the simple fact of my mother having turned 95. Collectively, these things make me feel more aware of the fragility of life, the patterns of the seasons, and my desire to hold on to what I cherish and to appreciate it for all it is worth.
In such contemplative moments, the winter landscape beckons. In its soft grays, muted browns, and whites, it provides me with room to wander around, to sort out my thoughts, to confirm my values, and to contemplate the complexity of what lies ahead for us all. In place of my old dog Fred, who passed away three winters ago on a snowy night, Henry now accompanies me on such walks. Almost two years old, he steps out into the world with an excitement and an openness that I associate with youth in all its glory. As he and I walk through a restored prairie by my mother’s house and as he takes in the scents of those who have passed before him, I take in the landscape in my own manner. And, just as his nose can travel through time and sniff out the story of those who were here before us, I, too, have a way of seeing what has been. Seedpods of swamp milkweed, the feathery pappuses of asters, the cymes of goldenrod seeds, and even the architectural forms of invasive teasel, animate the meadow. Some still carry seeds that will go on to germinate in the spring, while others provide their seeds to the birds that populate the meadow even at this time of year.
One cannot help but see the beauty of these plants even in their skeletal forms, covered in frost and a bit of snow, and they remind me of the summer walks I have taken with Fred, and now Henry, on visits to see my mother. I know for many, this would seem tinged with sadness, but somehow within the weathered and wind-torn seed pod of a milkweed, vacated by most of its seeds, many of which have floated off on the wind to germinate somewhere else in the prairie, I see something else. I see the beauty of the past, yes, and the memories of those that are with us no longer, but I also see something more—the ability of these plants and the seeds that they have produced to move forward into another spring, and this gives me hope. Not unlike Henry, or my two-year-old great nephew Thomas, who kept us all laughing all night long on Christmas eve with his youthful antics, these plants and their seeds remind me of our connection to the complex progression of something larger than ourselves, something that cannot simply be quantified by days and years of individual members of the ecosystem, but as part of a continuum that contains all that we love and cherish. This feeling does not diminish what has been lost, or make me forget friends, pets, and relatives that are no longer at my side, but it reminds me that there is still a place in my heart for joy.
On the way back to my mother’s house, Henry and I stop and pick seedheads from a stand of zinnias that bloom prolifically each summer. I remember their color and form—and the fact that they seem to be devoid of disease and powdery mildew even late into the summer—from previous trips to Chicago in August and September. I put them into my pocket, knowing I will thresh their seeds, save them, and sow them later. I smile, thinking about how Thomas and Henry will enjoy the zinnias in the season to come.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
