Saving Seeds

Labor Day! Peter went to work anyway, and I've been granted a day at home with absolutely no obligations (except to myself!), as the boys decided to stay with my son-in-law rather than drive all the way down to Grammy's house in Allentown. Who could blame them? Daddy lives in the country. I'd stay there too. This leaves me alone but not lonely, excused from both school and grandsons, and fancy-free! Though it's Monday, I finished the weekly soup today; there is enough for everyone. And, as I was trying to locate counter space in my cluttered kitchen, I found the seeds I started collecting this summer.

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Saving seeds makes me dream of spring; those first sweet breezes, the warmer sun, the relief from ice and snow, and the first bowed, green, infant cotyledons pushing themselves free of the womb of the earth. I see the new year; the winter ahead will be filled with different memories, growing the garden of family and school, and when the time is right, we'll move outdoors again.

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I saw a vanity plate today that simply said "DEMETER". I took it as a sign that fall was coming, poor Persephone in peril of her time underground. As a mother, grandmother, and teacher, I think the message of Demeter is closer to me that that of Persephone, though they're both timely. I dream fitfully in the fall, in the transition of the seasons. It's a transformative time. I don't quite understand my restlessness, apart from the usual school anxiety. The approaching months are always intense, and have been since I can remember. Perhaps it's a genetic memory of impending winter trials; or a pre-birth memory of last-months crowding and discomfort. It may be a sense of turning seasons, of saying good-bye; I don't know. The myths are interesting in their archetypal truth; they continue to resonate with me, even as I age and learn.

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The seeds are saved, the waning garden tended, and I'm filling my freezer for winter. Though my garden was disappointing after the first flush, the farmers' markets are blooming now. Harvest approaches.