March in Vermont

Here's what I like about winter in Vermont: I can curl up, without apology, in the over-sized armchair in front of the fire and read at 4:30 in the afternoon because there's only darkness beyond the window.

Here's what I don't like about (this) March in Vermont. It is no longer dark at 4:30; darkness now doesn't fall until after 7PM. And yet, snow still blankets our field, and today the wind is whipping up snow devils and rocking trees. The ambient temperature hovers around 20.

My biological clock is telling me, urging me, to stop reading and start looking for signs of crocuses making their way through newly warmed soil. (Theirs is probably telling them to get growing.) I can barely see my garden, let alone anything small and green making its present known. Let's not even discuss purple. Or yellow.

I could shovel and scrape some of the snow from the garden. At Fenway and the Esplanade in Boston, MA, they are sprinkling dark soil on top of the snow to attract heat and encourage melting. I could do that. But what self-respecting crocus is going to poke its nose out in weather like this anyway?

I don't have a date such as Opening Day, or the Fourth of July, by which my garden must be green and lush. I have only my need to dig in dirt, to welcome back my foliated friends, and to be reassured that the cycle of life will, eventually, make its way around.

Nature teaches us patience, forbearance, and acceptance if we're willing to listen. And so I keep curling up in that chair and reading. It's not what I want to be doing right now. But it's a pleasant way to pass the time until spring.

Waiting in Vermont

Writers do a lot of this. We wait for inspiration for stories and for characters' names. We wait for the perfect word, for word from the readers of our early drafts, from agents, editors, publicists, and events coordinators. We wait for cover art, galleys, and books, for reviews and profiles, for invitations from book clubs and from talk show hosts. We can wait a very long time for those.

And while we wait, we pretend we're not waiting and plant lettuce, and then we wait for the sun to come out, and then for the rain, and then again for the sun, so we can walk our dog, while we wait, impatiently, for the seeds to poke up through the soil. 

We wait for the dog to do her "business" and for other dogs to show up to play.

We wait for teaching jobs and freelance assignments and for the coffee to brew.

We wait for emails, phone calls, contracts, and for the contractor to start renovating our bathroom, so we can pretend we're busy and not waiting for emails and phone calls and inspiration.

And then, while our backs are turned, the lettuce seeds turn into pale green rows.

We watch our perennials broaden and wait for them to bloom, wishing each blossom would wait just a little longer before it died. We wait for the Farmer's Market to open. We wait, uneasily, for the season's first black flies.

We wait for local strawberries, tomatoes, basil, raspberries, blueberries, and corn. We harvest our lettuce while we wait, wishing that word from others and inspiration were as easy to come by.