It's late February. The twenty second, actually, and I find myself longing for Spring. I recently reviewed old pictures of our home in the green, and it has made me miss it all the more. I'm tired of static electricity and stray leaves and dead grass clippings. I miss the grass, and the flowers, and the garden producing fruit, and looking out on the lawn to see anything other than beige, brown, blah.
But now I'm thinking about hibernation, and its importance in the life cycle. The roots in the earth beneath that threadbare sheet of dry, brittle grass are resting now, and storing up the energy and nutrients needed to roll out a lush carpet of green when Spring finally does arrive. And I say finally like a spoiled child. As though I've been kept waiting for far too long. As though other areas of this fine land aren't still under a deep blanket of snow. Finally, as though February twenty second should be anything other than Winter.
I wonder if our rabbits are still out there, in the back yard. Last spring we erected a beautiful little building. It isn't exactly a shed, though some of it is used for storage, and it isn't exactly a playhouse, though it can be played in, and it isn't entirely a deck, though half of it is open to the big Texas sky. We call it The Burrow, after a literary home in one of our favorite fictional series. And now I am back to missing the green, because in my mind I can see The Burrow with its window boxes overflowing with flowers and I can almost feel the warm southern breezes passing through.
Why do I long for what is coming next? Am I so ungrateful for what today, this very day, has in store?
Today is hibernation. Today I am unwell, and therefore unproductive, and it is getting to me. At this moment, I am alone in the house. Well, alone except for Baudelaire, the King of Pets. He is sleeping somewhere, always content. But I am restless. I crave productivity. I love dashing through checklists. I thrive on the feeling of progress, the notion that I am getting somewhere. There are many things that I could do today; right now I could take to task and get something done. But the one thing that I should do today is rest. I've pretended for a full week that I didn't feel that bad, that my allergies are simply acting up, that I can carry on as usual.
I am such a doer that, at times like these, I have to discipline myself to be still. In my list making, progress seeking frenzy, I would prefer to toil away, trying to get well. I would organize and clean this house to a shine that no sickness would dare to enter, except that this would only result in deeper fatigue. Quite the opposite of what a healing body requires. So for now, I will watch the sun set behind my neighbor's skeletal trees and enjoy the quiet company of the King of Pets, who has decided to join me after all.
The week has worn me out. I'm home alone to rest, and so I shall. I will embrace today's hibernation, and in so doing I embrace the promise of the coming Spring. The promise of golden sunshine and flower blossoms. The promise held in the tightly coiled grip of unfurling fern fronds. No matter how much I work, I cannot make the Spring come any faster. I can only hibernate and believe that it will come.
