What to Do When the Love of Most Will Grow Cold? Garden!

Southern Yellowjacket, Vespula squamosa, on Camellia sasanqua "Yuletide," December 31, 2010, Santa Rosa County, Florida

 On the last day of 2010, we took stock of the garden at home. The extreme cold had left us for a day or two--at least the kind you can feel on your skin and in your bones--so it was a nice day to be outside. Sunshine kept us company in the morning as we walked around the yard, SAM and I, picking up on some cues from the social insects. Those were some good vibes I felt coming my way from the yellow jacket on my Camellia sasanqua "Yuletide," a shrub I planted almost two years ago, shortly after SAM lost his job in Illinois.  


Honeybee on Camellia sasanqua "Yuletide," Santa Rosa County, Florida, December 31, 2010



At the time, I thought I was being foolish, adding plants to a home we might have to sell or possibly lose to the bank. SAM probably thought so too, but he didn't discourage me. He knew that I was cultivating hope, something for the future. The honeybees evidently think the future is important too. They're busy even at this time of year in Northwest Florida. You would think they'd stay cozy in their hive, keeping each other warm, and letting the world go to hell in a hand basket. No, some of them are out trying to find fresh supplies of nectar and pollen so the rest of the hive can survive the winter. They just don't know any better, I guess. Unemployment is never an issue for them or the rest of their family. They're insulated from that kind of disaster at least, and they stick together for the ones that do strike. The honey helps with the sticking together, of course, but it's really that prime directive planted in their little brains that keeps them going: Keep the hive alive, whatever the cost!  

 It might not look like much now, this little plant of mine. It's only a bit more than a meter high, but it's grown a lot in two years. I got it for a bargain price, one of those after Christmas specials you find at the big box stores. Who in the world would want "Yuletide" after Christmas? It's anticlimactic, to say the least.

Anticlimax rears its ugly head even though nature tries its best to cover the mess. Before SAM and I took stock of things in and out of the garden last Friday morning, we took a walk down the street and passed that old house I showed you in late 2009 when the wind was scheduled to break. It's still falling down. What a disappointment that must be to the people directly across the street who have recently listed their home for sale. Too bad for them that the late-season tropical storm didn't go far enough and bring the whole thing crashing down. It appears as if its last inhabitants' fortune endured death by a thousand cuts, a slow decline that, unfortunately, left a telltale, if bloodless, sign of things to come for homeowners all over the United States.

Less than a mile down the road from the house with no more facade, yet another new subdivision has been carved out of Northwest Florida farmland and forest. A few houses have been built, and there are plenty of empty lots waiting for more. So far as we could tell, no one has moved into the neighborhood. I imagine the builder and his crews are getting a little anxious. This development, by the way, began to take shape after the economy and real estate market started to collapse a couple of years ago. Is this evidence of hopefulness or just flying in the face of common sense? Time will tell. Let's hope it's a kind tale for the sake of those people who are waiting on things to get better.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of Ground, or Air or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--

This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--

(Emily Dickinson, c. 1862)

It seems that Miss Emily had considered that famous biblical prophecy a time or two: "Because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold..." The inevitability of life's struggles, the weight of the world's troubles, not to mention personal trials--all of it seems too much to bear, alone at least. That must be how love grows cold, in individual souls, one at a time, cultivated over time, nurtured by anger or fear and then eventually paralyzed into inaction.

It's an interesting thing, this idea of growing cold. C. S. Lewis in his story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe used eternal Winter as a trope to describe the expansion of coldheartedness, something that grows as faith contracts.

Late in the morning on the last day of the year before the rains began that would dampen some revelers' spirits, SAM and I got busy increasing our stock of blueberry bushes. It was as simple as digging up some of the roots that have been steadily multiplying themselves since we first planted those suckers from the original blueberry plants almost two years ago. It looks like our garden will need to be even more fruitful in the near future.

There may be more mouths to feed from this garden. Let's hope it and we are up to the task. The soil, at least, is getting better all the time. Someone we know who raises chickens has promised me something to make it even richer. Hey, we take what we can get!