Days When the Good is Not Far-Fetched

 It is oddly quiet around the farmstead, save for the gusting winds that portend chillier changes to come; a kind of suspended animation.  The garden is cleared of its spent vines and bushes; the tomato cages stored away.  The chicken yard is fully winterized, with the more capacious waterers replaced by the smaller heated ones plugged in and ready; runs wrapped with tarps and sided with straw; windows closed and secured.  The chickens, themselves - only yesterday, it seems, pathetic and threadbare with their molting - have replumed with warm resplendence.  Beyond our humble address, democracy, too, is holding its breath; waiting for the recent election to be clarified and settled.  In a pandemic-frozen world a vaccine is nearing release, but not yet.  "Suspended animation," indeed.

All is ready.  We are waiting for what surely will arrive any day.  But precisely which day is beyond our sight.  The belly is swollen, but thus far only false contractions.  The election will get resolved.  The virus will eventually be quieted.  Winter will descend and grip us.  But today the forecast predicts 50-degrees.
.  

We aren't usually this prepared.  Winter more commonly catches us distracted with other busyness.  Last year the garden had to wait until the new spring to be cleared of its autumn detritus.  More than once I have winterized the coops as the snow flurried.  But whether by uncharacteristic discipline, fewer distractions, or more time on our hands, this year has been different.  Yesterday we even trimmed down bushes and hedges that sometimes go years without shaping.  

Ready, and waiting.

It's hardly Purgatory.  We are incredibly privileged.  There is no tacit condemnation awaiting ached-for redemption.  It's a blessing, really, to be nestled in a taffy-like autumn that is stretching into uncharacteristic reaches of November.  It's just...different.  We have more experience with frenzy, with rushing, with "Just in Time" - if not a little past that.  But we could get used to it.

Already our personal roots have begun to reach into deeper soil, stretching into corners of the soul usually undiscovered until January's darkness or February's existential ache.  With less exhaustion and more stillness, our reading is already meatier, our prayers loamier and more considered, our conversations more expansive with equal parts analysis and imagination.  We are settling in - into the changing season, into the comfort of the glowing hearth, into the interior environs of a home we love, and into the evocations of the Word that pronounced day and night, creeping, swimming and flying things, flowering trees and fruiting plants...

...and even humans...

..."very good."

Despite the world's seemingly endless and concerted efforts to contradict that assessment, just now - at least here on the farmstead, poised in suspended animation
- it is easy to believe.