The Seeds Amidst the Snow

Common among childhood Decembers are the countless reminders that, while Christmas is surely coming and nearing, it is not quite yet here.  There are cookies baking in the kitchen -- but to be given away.  There are stockings hanging from the mantle -- though empty.  There are presents beneath the tree, colorfully but effectively veiled from use or even view.  "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" wafts from the speakers as an anthemic ode not only to seasonal fancy but to the very essence of anticipation.  It's coming, but not yet.

And yesterday, awash in a sunny fifty-degree day, I planted seeds and secured them in the greenhouse as a down-payment on spring, only to be greeted this morning by more snow.  It is, in a way, a climatic representation of this whole phase of the gardening season:  a taunting, near-whiplashing reverberation between giddy busyness and clock-ticking stillness.  There are seed catalogs to digest, orders to assemble...and the waiting time until they are delivered.  There are garden designs to draw...and then shelve until post-freeze.  Eventually there are seeds to gently lodge in the potting soiled cells...now followed by the days -- how many days? -- of imperceptible growth and activity.  Now descends the glacial pace of germination when, at least by eye-measure, absolutely nothing is going on.

But if nature is taking its course, growth is subtly, miraculously transpiring. 

The greenhouse depends upon radiant heat from the sun; far from sealed tight, it is vented by design.  A space heater can't possibly sustain all the warmth on which the fragile seeds depend.  Nonetheless, according to the remote thermometer it is over 50-degrees inside, with the larger warmth of the day still to come.  Tir and I will eventually head out to survey the invisible progress and sprinkle on the day's drink.  In the meantime, suspended between the "already" and the "not yet," I'll relax and enjoy the snow.