Dormancy

“You’d corner me in your conformity but even in dormancy i’m sleeping with enormity, stretching the belly of the earth & everything i was born to be.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones

It will be dark by 4:30 this afternoon.  Yay.

There is supposed to be a logical reason for the time change. Personally, I have never heard one that actually made any sense to me. Where does that hour go during the months we curl inward like hedgehogs and put on another layer of clothes? Who decides when we get that hour of sunlight back?

My African violets seem to sense that it’s time to take a little snooze. This morning, when I gave them a drink, only one brave one was still showing off. Too soon, she will give up the ghost and spend her time wintering over with all her relations. The geranium in the dining room is still alive and when I brush past her, her pungent leaves remind me of warm, summer evenings.

The little Norfolk pine I had all but given up on last Spring seems to have a new lease on life after spending the summer outdoors in a planter with purple pansies for neighbors. She grew at least four inches and is putting out soft, light green, needles. My tiny tree will see another Christmas, after all. Thank goodness for evergreens in November.

I will celebrate my 58th birthday this week by counting my blessings. A really good man and the two spectacular people who call me Mom. A large, loving, slightly nuts, extended family that I hope to be able to discuss politics with again eventually. The dear, brave, beautiful friends who have always made me better than I would have been otherwise. Wool socks and down jackets and bifocals and strong coffee. The laugh lines around my eyes and two frown lines between them that my grandmother always warned me I’d get if I didn’t lighten up. The gray hair on my head that makes me appear to have lived long enough to know one or two things. All blessings.

And finally, a fat, sassy, little beagle who eats each meal and lives each day like it’s the last one she’s going to get. Who has the good sense to snuggle up to her humans when she’s cold and go to sleep when it’s dark.

A pup who pays no mind to time changes, wrinkles, or birthdays and just sees every day as a treat to be savored and embraced.