Midlife Motivation

Posted in Blogs on Creative Corner by Susan Loveday at 12.58am on Mon 22 Feb 2010.

For a brief spell the ice had melted revealing my borders of withered damp brown vegetation that were last summers late flush of colour. Leaves had blown in covering any remaining signs of earth.

At three o’clock on Sunday the sun broke through. The sky cleared to a misty blue and there was no wind. With a mile long list of things to do, I left them all and put on my gardening boots.

Lifting straggly old pansies and scattering tiny open pods of hard brown seeds was lovely. Gathering up the leaves in my new Christmas gardening gloves was more exciting than any gift. 

Under the rotting waste were clusters of dark green tips peeping through the soil. Small clumps of snowdrops seemed to breath a sigh of relief as their load was lifted from above.

I yanked large bunches of hard wooded old wall flowers from the soil leaving open spaces offering the later bulbs light. Light. A main ingredient to life so lacking just now. How I long for more light.

I unbagged by chitting potatoes gently easing them free from the netted bag where they had erupted with tiny shoots escaping through the holes. I lost a few. They now stand like soldiers in a row kept free from frost waiting for more light to sprout another bud.

The life source that has been resting is slowly coming back to us once again.

By five my hands and knees were cold and wet and my back ached. I reluctantly returned indoors. My face reddened from the shock of the great outdoors and my soul nourished with knowledge that it’s all in front of us.

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Tags: blog, monthly gardening