Tending To One’s Frozen Garden

I haven’t written a lot of new things lately. I still post, short food memories and reposts of old recipes, but I’ve been feeling a bit frosted over these last few weeks – I go to work, I get Christmas presents bought and wrapped, and I try to join friends for cheerful gatherings, but all the other time, the long dark times of the winter, have me wrapped up in blankets with a book or a computer screen. I’m hibernating a little.

I also feel coiled to spring. We have a blow-up Santa Claus in our front yard, and every few days he gets so encumbered with ice and snow that the blower motor cannot puff him up. I kick the snow and ice off of him and eventually, like he was just waiting to be unleashed, he puffs right back up, his pillowy plastic hand waving to passersby. I’m encumbered by the ice too, made to walk very slowly and deliberately, made to relish sleep and revel in hot liquids. But I’m poised, ready to make 2017 wonderful.

I cannot tell if I’m in a rut or simply haven’t finished a big project lately, but whatever it is, I know that this coming year is going to bring big things. I want to teach better than before, do the administrative part of my work with clarity and organization, and work hard on writing. I want to be a great wife and a passionate community member. I have a lot of things I hope to be, and I’m mulling over what the practical steps are to do these things. It’s a good time, winter, for making plans. Some of the plans will just be idle daydreams while the winter makes the streets too slick to go anywhere, but some of them will show up in our spring awakenings.

That being said, I’ll be around. I don’t stop eating and thinking and trying to connect to friends and family just because it’s winter; I’m just moving a little slower, trying to be a little more deliberate.