It’s hard to tell the seasons around here. Flowers bloom throughout the year, unaware of or resisting the cycles of birth, death & resurrection; and the grass never withers or fades. Rain and wind are the only things that occasionally fall from the sky; the sea never turns to ice – and there shall be no more sea, we silently whisper, entranced –, but rolls and rolls on, washing different things and objects ashore: gigantic jellyfish here, foul smelling shellfish there, beer bottles missing labels, wooden doors and refridgerators, suggesting a way to mark the time to which, perhaps, only beach wanders and biologists are attuned. I stay at home all day ironing shirts, awaiting the birth of our child and puzzling over why my plants keep dying, and my husband bike rides the short distance to and from work at the air force base while jets fly trajectories over our house. Outside of school and the seaons, time ticks by imperceptibly, we all grow older, gradually, covertly, without even noticing it. The church calendar seems to be the only way by which the year, by which our lives might be measured, along with, in the quiet hours, teacups and coffee spoons, and the books and articles we pour over each month.
This afternoon, before lunch, N. and I stood at our backdoor, his hands on my belly, looking out the screen at the flock of robins threshing through the dry leaves and pine straw covering our largely grassless backyard, in a madcap frenzy, loudly dashing here and there, above and below the red sawhorses N. built, searching for worms, before the long, chilly flight up north, to my home. Strangely, I had not seen them until this afternoon. Sitting on the beach and reading books, I have learned to substitute sandpipers for sparrows and have found some relief, feeling a smile pull at the corner of my mouth when the waves splash those that dawdle.
Standing there N. and I noticed that the juniper bonsai he had bought me last October is on its last. If it had a gardener discerning of the dormant seasons in northwest Florida it might have thrived.
Give me the coldest winter, a glass of hot cider, and hopes of a far off spring. I could live in hope.
Just this morning I had to deliver my ivy plant to the compost pile, laying it to rest. We had had white roses and ivy in our wedding, perhaps those faired better in my mother’s care, her well-lit living room.
