Garden Dreaming

Whole family is down sick, so the several longer essays I've been working on are on the back burner while I wash sheets and tend cranky little people.

My own retreat when things are in crisis is to the perfect spring garden of my imagination - especially valuable after several days of pouring rain (and our roof needs replacing) and then a giant ice storm.

My roof may leak, the children whine and I'm not feeling so hot myself, but in my head, it is spring, and I'm sitting on a mulched pathway, transplanting delicate baby seedlings into the garden bed. In my imagination it is warm, and sunny, and smells of earth and herbs.

And I get to fantasize about new things - what will the wolfberries taste like fresh? How much skirret do I want? And of course, my garden will be plenty - no running out of strawberry jam in January next year, this year's strawberries will burst off the vine and into the jars all by themselves.

And, of course, there seed catalogs to "help" me envision it. Lush, perfect plants in world without weeds in color saturated photos - of coures my herb garden will look just like that, with the orange calendulas, the purple sage and the chive blossoms harmonizing. It won't be like that, not quite, although it will be wonderful, but a girl can dream. What are you dreaming about?

Sharon