Journal: Spring equinox
The spring equinox has passed and our days are getting longer.
The older I get, the more tied I feel to the natural rhythm of things. Daylight. Seasons. A time to rest, to plant, to bloom, and to harvest.
This winter has been challenging in the way quiet growth often is. It feels like there is little to show for it, but winter’s work is like that. It happens underground, where roots spread out unseen. Above ground, the branches that aren’t providing are pruned back so growth can refocus come spring. That’s where I’ve been.
There’s an apple tree at the lake house I want to take care of next week. It’s been there for decades and left unmanaged for quite some time. Grass has grown right up to the base of the trunk, and moss covers the bark, keeping it damp and susceptible to pests. The branches reach in every direction, with no rhythm or structure. Ten thousand offshoots competing for the same resources. It’s the perfect example of why multitasking fails. Last year’s buds that could have become apples have shriveled and hang on weakly as new shoots push forward.
It reminds me of how we live. Too many directions. Too much noise. Neglecting the basics while convincing ourselves that more is better.
Next week I’ll go out there as my own new ritual of spring, gardening gloves on, pruners in hand. I’ll clear the base so the roots can warm in the sun. I’ll clean the trunk so it can breathe. And then I’ll start cutting. Not carefully and not sentimentally. I’ll take off the branches that are using energy without producing anything meaningful.
Our lives rotate a bit with our travel, so this next few weeks closes the winter chapter and we truly begin spring. We are closing this chapter as we move the house from Arizona and into a very exciting one at our log cabin on the lake a week before we head back to Greece. Our year will see us switch seasons between the island in Greece for spring, the endless days of summer at the cabin, then back for fall and early winter on the island. This rotation divides the year into four sections, and frankly, it divides my growth too. I think of myself in these blocks of time. Next Saturday I will come back to the lake house and walk into a time capsule I left over a month ago. Then to Greece, where I was at the very end of November. Projects that I’d started, ideas left on sketchpads, a journal that last saw me months prior.
It’s a strange experience, but a useful one. I get to step back into my own life and see it clearly. What still fits, what doesn’t, what feels lighter and what feels unnecessary. I reflect back on decades of my life where my days all felt the same. Weeks rolled into months into years. I was like that apple tree. Busy, overextended, and neglected where it mattered most.
Now I realize maybe it’s not even about the apples. It’s about the process of going out and pruning. Working in the sun. Getting dirt under my nails. Noticing how, if I’m still enough, the bluejays will come sit close.
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I’m off to sharpen my literal and metaphorical pruning shears (okay, and finish packing because we load the moving truck this weekend!) If you’ve got thoughts or questions, you can always message me.
xo,
Rose
