"Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for
Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
" Oh' The Places You'll Go - Dr Seuss
It's the 20th of September and the leaves on the ginormous sprawling Elm tree in the corner of the garden are yet to unfurl. At least I think it's an Elm tree. Regardless, whatever it is, it's my favourite and every year, it's the last to bloom.
I impatiently bide time, checking every day to see if there are any delicate baby buds starting to form. They don't. At least until early October, sometimes later- and then they arrive in a hurried mess of green, the tree once again asserting itself as mother canopy of the garden. This happens in what seems like minutes, but is probably more like a few days.
My internal monologue is incessant. I reassure myself- this year will be the same, the tree always blooms late. Probably. Won't it? - Yes - this happens every year. But trees die. What if this year it's finally died?
And so, not for the first time, I go out to remove some bark and scratch the trunk. Still green.
It's alive. Just give it time. It needs time. Maybe the tree is old and tired and needs more rest. Maybe the season has been too wet or too dry. Maybe it's protesting and doesn't really know yet that it actually wants to be the cornerstone of the garden, even though that's what it's always been or maybe, it's just a tree that takes a little longer to grow leaves again.
But my booming brain cannot be easily drowned out. And so, I will go out and check tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Doubt always creeping in, until I see with my very own eyes that the tree has decided to bloom.
And in the meantime, I realise I'm projecting my own existential crisis onto that magical tree. I'm just kind of sitting here having no idea how to work out what I want to be when I grow up while the tree just needs some warmer soil to start to grow. Do I need warmer soil? More air? I only know I'm far from where I've been, but don't know where I'm going. Will I be stuck in the phase of purgatory that is a deciduous tree waiting to emerge from Winter? Doubt always creeping in.
While I'm waiting for signs of life in the tree, and signs from the universe for me, there's plenty going on in the garden.
The most glorious echium are royally participating in their annual salute to the sun. The show will last only weeks. Fields of daisies cascade through nasturtiums and lavender, an earthly reminder that my heavenly matriarchs Ninny and Granny Pat are present in the patch, no doubt floating by and checking in from time to time.
There's buds on the apricot tree, and I've eyed off the lorikeets expertly stealing loads of tiny baby almonds.
There's some beautiful calendula that I keep forgetting to pick - but eventually, I'll remember at the right time (in the morning before the sun has scorched the petals all day) and I'll dry them to make into tea and soothing compresses.
This year we'll have to cover the weeping mulberry so the wee ones have time to delight in the spoils. Last year, the birds were gluttonous.
We've just planted potatoes (kipfler and sebago), varied types of lettuce, tomatoes - mainly heirloom and cherry varieties, zucchini, eggplant, melon, pumpkin, snow peas, strawberries, artichokes, loads of herbs including peppermint, no bolt coriander, basil, vietnamese mint, red sage, lemon thyme and more lemongrass.
Yet there's still so much to do. Mulch, finish planting out the veggie patches, top up the worm farm, build a new coop for the chickens.
And of course, there's lots of waiting to do.
For the leaves to show, for the haze to go, for Spring winds to blow, for me to know.
Everyone is always waiting.
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