Just Write

And that's what I'm gonna do.

This morning I walked out my back door, turned to my left and fell in love.

My husband Tim is a passionate gardener.
I often take for granted the perennial beauty he creates.
But this morning - his roses finally won my heart and deepest appreciation... not only for their beauty - but for the man who nurtures them through all the seasons.

It's a warm spring day today - but as I crouched by the roses - I recalled winter and felt in my body how easy it is, during the cold days, to forget that the warmth and flowers will return.
Perhaps, most importantly - the flowers in our garden return because someone (you know who, not me) is tending, tending, tending - even when tending might not be so easy or immediately rewarding.

So yeah, my therapist brain is connecting this to self-tending.
A reminder not to lose faith in the return of our own warmth and blossoming when we are in seemingly barren-winter-garden moments.
Faith in the form of patient and loyal tending, tending, tending.

I went back in the house and wrote this...
It's my homage to Tim, his roses, and the way I've learned to tend to my winter garden when tending feels like the last thing I can or want to do...

Ache
I am not a gardener.
I am not drawn to dig in the dirt, plant and transplant.
This does not bring me alive.

My husband has this passion.
It amazes me.
He is out in the garden before the frost is gone,
sensing the silent stirrings;
trusting the promise of renewal.

I sometimes sit and watch him in the garden
and try to hold the joy he knows.
At those times
I wish I could be a garden woman,
a weaving,
quilt making,
pottery throwing,
cooking woman.

I’m not.

Yet, in my own way, I sense the silent stirrings.

I don’t want to dig in the earth.
I don’t want to go back inside, sit by the fire,
and wait for the full blossoming.
I want to run away from home.
Make camp by a cold, harsh, wild running river.

I want to pack up a little sack filled with
my pair of worn jeans,
sweater,
extra socks and underwear,
a book of poetry,
a sketch pad and colored pencils,
my writing journal,
my bright colored cap,
and an energy bar that lasts for days, if not months, possibly years.

I want to rip the door off its hinges
and jump onto a brown and white spotted horse,
wrap my arms around her neck
let her take me fast and furious into the mountains.

I want to stay where she takes me
until the ache leaves
and my body tells me that I belong.

But since I have no horse and can’t run away just yet,
I will quietly take off all my winter clothes,
fold them neatly in a pile at the foot of my bed,
slip slowly out the back door
and fall face down, 
belly down,
thighs down,
onto the cold earth
and wait.

__________________

Oh and by the way - I'm not going to suggest you KEEP LEAPING anymore. 

It seems like such a bossy thing to say. 

Maybe (since I can't help myself) - I'll just invite you to befriend and tend the entire beauty that you are.