The Winter of (Dis)Content.

I said I wasn't going to curse winter, but I have.

Oakley and I took his wagon around the block a few days ago. That day the sun threw back the curtains with fierce abandon to reveal a luminous splendor. I eschewed conventional wisdom and stared bare-eyed at her. Was she taunting or were her unimpeded, warm rays telling me to buck up because spring isn't all that far away? Were they whispering that very soon, as in ancient Greek mythology, Aphrodite's true love Adonis, his demise met with the impaled tusks of a wild boar, will be resurrected by the waters of life (the spring rains) to mark the rebirth of nature? When I saw itty bitty January buds on our willow, I knew the environs were conspiring.



Despite the hopeful signs, I needed to re-evaluate my battitude to ward off possible seasonal depression lite. So I did what I've done every winter for eight years when things look bleak. I pulled out an uplifting article written by Lee May, from his home in Connecticut, that I ripped out of a U.S. Airways Attache magazine those so many years ago, and read with pleading eyes. As an amateur gardener-in-training especially, it always helps to see winter through the eyes of an eloquent admirer.


Our Jardin.

Without any permission (apologies, entire credit and gobs of gratitude to Mr. May) here is the abridged version.


A Stark and Bare Beauty

"The collapse was no surprise. The sweet birch had been ailing quite sometime, its dark bark rotted and riddled with holes rat-a-tat-tatted by happy woodpeckers. After weaving precariously in the wind for several months, the tree checked out this past fall on a chilly moonlit night, breaking in half with a resounding crrraaack!

Next morning, I went out to examine its remains, noting that the fallen half, about 20 feet long, lay sprawled across the stream of rocks that I have laid out in a meandering path to evoke water running across my front garden. Every so often, I visited the tree, breaking off small branches, inhaling their fragrance, and chewing on little twigs to taste the sweetness that spawned the soft drink, birch beer.

I decided to leave the fallen tree across the stream of rocks, as it would lend a fine winter's touch to the landscape. After all, this is the season of sweet decay. Of fallen trees and fallen leaves, resulting in a space bare and achingly beautiful.

Winter, the great leveler, gives no special privileges to over-the-top blooms or spectacular foliage. In a neutral background of grays and browns under skies of lead, plants formerly dressed in flaunted colors now are stripped down, like a lover unrobed. This is nature's way of getting to the essence of things. The effect is a whole new garden...

Gardens, whether wild woods or cultivated plots, inspire contemplation. In winter, that inspiration deepens, as this season is quieter, slower. In the relative emptiness, we see more of what is left, great and small.

A big oak lives at the edge of my woods. Free of any nearby trees and shrubs, it stands most of the year surrounded by wild ferns and flowers. A giant king of these two acres, its massive arms spread to welcome all admirers. When it goes bare, and the soft growth around it disappears, it gains even more presence, dominating the landscape. Seen from the porch 100 yards away, its gray eminence strikes awe...

Winter always is unrepentingly frank, showing my pruning mistakes, making me wince guility when confronted by trees and shrubs suffering excessive cuts mercifully camouflaged by leaves most of the year...

The grays, the browns, and the whites of snow prevail and paint the scene as surely as if the winter world were done with the masterfully restrained strokes of an ink drawing. This spareness seems right for winter; we have three other seasons filled with color and bigness...

My dark-bark sweet birch, which had stood near several white ones, soon grew comfortable in its sprawl across the stream of rocks. Eventually it will decay into just a memory. How many winters, how many springs and summers and autumns will that take? Soon, it will see its first spring flowers from crocus level. And as the fat, leafy season stirs things up, splashes color upon the landscape like birds flitting in shallow rock-pools, the fallen birch will just snuggle closer to its bed of rocks. It has fallen into a permanent winter.

But those of us who embrace this season of bare and bony beauty feel no sorrow for the birch. We know there are worse places to be."