Moments in Time

Pictures show what a piece of the world looks like at that moment in time. The world doesn’t care one way or the other. It’s not holding it’s breath taking in the wonders of being alive, and it’s not worrying about the certain future when everything alive in that snapshot will be dead.

Yesterday was the first day I’ve spent working in the backyard for months. Last week it was rainy and cool, and the rain washed away dry winter dust and uncovered the promise of spring. Yesterday was sunny and warm. I tossed around the compost piles to aerate them so I’ll have priceless “black gold” compost for my vegetable garden this spring. Because of our unusual and prolonged freezes last month, I had assumed all the worms had frozen to death. But yesterday, there, amid the rich and decaying garbage, I found worms by the pitchfork full. I should have more faith in the world.

The back yard is a good place to go when winter cooped indoors makes thoughts of dying and loss fill my head. The smell of the rich but not-quite-ready living compost reminded me that nothing is lost and that everything comes back.

The dead coleus in the large round pot, and the dead salvia in the blue pots all left seeds behind that I carefully tossed into the struggling herb garden. The dead plants went into the compost pile. The pots will be emptied, washed, filled with new compost, and replanted within a few months. It felt good to be part of the eternal cycle yesterday, working in the sunshine, smelling the warm compost and thinking about the way life goes on even though our lives may be no more than a snapshot of our moment in that cycle.