All Things New

Funny how the simple turn of the calendar page can trigger a mindset.  We go to bed after ringing in the New Year still hearing the echoes of Christmas carols, still in party food mode - and we wake up on January 1 ready to go plow the garden and buy new tomato stakes .  Well, okay, SOME of us do.  Well, okay, maybe I'm the only one.

Optimist that I am, the New Year always calls me with promises.  This will be the year that I finally get it all done, lose the weight, organize my life, scale new heights, discover new worlds.  Those promises are so delicious.  There may be snow in my garden, but my ears already hear mockingbirds and my face already feels the warm April sun.  This is so tangible for me that I have actually gone into Lowes in early January and purchased my zinnia seeds.  I exchange a glance with the check-out girl that says "Yes, I'm crazy.  Just humor me and ring them up."

Hope springs eternal in January.  Hope eventually gives way to those mockingbirds, and the zinnia seeds make the journey home with me from Lowes.  They live in my mind as flowers all the way through a couple of snowstorms, spring winds, a late frost or two, and the occasional dry spell in June before finally opening their eyes in July and telling me hello in person.


Something in me wants to take the first bouquet to the girl at Lowes with a triumphant smile on my face, saying "Here you go, you of little faith!"  But, of course, I don't.

  Instead, I've come to be grateful for that thing in me that feels April sunshine in January and sees a green garden full blown in the dark of a winter afternoon.  I recognize it as the gift that allows me to create and to do what I do for a living, calling up images from thin air and giving them my version of life on paper.  Just like those seeds, sometimes the reward doesn't come right away - but the promise of it is as good as the real thing.