“I was leaving the Barnard General Store as usual, with a coffee and fresh baked muffin in hand, when I heard my name. I looked around, then noticed the young man behind the wheel of a dump truck, window open, who had noticed me. It took me a moment to register the face, out of context. It was one of my son’s best friends, possibly the best, who was so often working, that few of us ever caught a glimpse of him in the wild. He slid out of the driver’s seat, stepping onto the pavement in front of the store, with a cocky smile, and his familiar, effervescent presence. “How’s your foot?” I said, immediately noting his not-so-well disguised effort, to appear upright, and mobile. “All right,” he said, without any diminishment in his friendly demeanor. I immediately felt a pang of empathy, knowing what I knew about his injury, suffered last spring. For a stone mason, a broken ankle at the onset of the busy season, would not be a cake walk. Yet, he’d soldiered thru, and completed all his work, under duress. It was almost time for he and his partner, one of my dearest, and most long-standing gardening associates, to move south for the winter. “i’m on a job in Pomfret”, he continued. “What are you doing over this way?”,We both frequented the store, I knew, but had never met on a workday. “I still have a number of clients around here,” I reminded him. My start time in November, was about an hour later than in summer, due to frozen ground, and sometimes, snow. “I’m in a pinch,”, I said. “I normally cut everything down by hand, but I’ve got my weed whacker today”, I admitted. It seemed like a confession of sorts. I was short staffed, and had a lot of ground to cover, before bad weather, predicted for the weekend, would shut down my operations for good, until spring. I savored these final days. It was this piece of autumn, I craved, during the hot, grueling summer. Just let me be at peace for a couple months, tuning myself to the long sleep of winter, touching the plants, and what’s left of the warm earth, in an undisturbed quiet, tucked under the chevron flight of geese. No lawn mowers, no leaf blowers, no traffic, no goals. No more blooms, or dazzling colors, no open competition, or urgent management systems to deploy. No pest control, no rain deficits, no fresh dog poop, no profusions of sweat. The raking that is left, brings solace. Tools lost, come home, most of them, like unexpected birthday gifts. Even ice on the pond feels welcome, like an old, codgerly friend. It’s okay now, to trample the ferns, and set their dried fronds free. They will return. As will we, after a good, hearty sojourn thru the heart of solstice death and renewal, a veritable crock-pot of hard-won gratitude, bubbling & refilling with longing, at every stir.”
