Crawling out of my hole

When a thing is born, what does it first do?

Write a novel? Wash the dishes?

Nah. It cries. And sleeps, and learns to crawl.

Are rules the same for the re-born? And is too grandiose to suggest that in a way, this is happening to me?

It's not about the new year - it's about the final days of a deal that I reluctantly made with myself last spring, when I thought my company was going down and me with it (yay, newspapers). I decided to launch myself into the industrious, ambitious, obsessed business world to see if I could "make it" outside of the only job I've ever known.

In doing so, I made this deal and traded in my entire life. No more pottery, no more twice-daily yoga, or long hikes, or friends, or painting, or GARDENING, or blogging (which you are surely to not notice, as no one reads this anymore, therefore, there's no you there).

However, I did not lose my job. I just gained another full-time job, and for the past 9 months, been doing them both - and nothing else.

Boring.

That, though, is ending. I can't say for sure how, but I desperately want my life back, the connection to the earth and things that grow and have nothing to do with this man-made world of concrete and invisible economies.

This was a pre-meditated rebirth - meaning that I've been planning for it for months. Stage One was full of crying and being totally unimpressive, like most infants.

Stage Two came this weekend. I dusted off my seed catalogues, recruited the ever-supportive Erik and set about to make Plans for this year's Garden. Or, ahem, gardenS. We're expanding the operation.

On tap this growing season:

kale (dwarf blue curled scotch and lacinato)

potatoes (French Fingerling and All Blue)

tomatoes (Sidduth's strain Brandywine and Black from Tula)

Chinese cabbage (Joi Choi)

beets (early blood turnip)

carrots (Paris market and Danvers)

zucchini (green tiger)

summer squash (summer crookneck)

winter squash (table queen acorn-type)

dill

cucumbers (sweet success hybrid)

chard (Fordhook giant)

corn (Reed's yellow dent)

sunflowers

garlic (German extra hardy)

eggplant (listada de Gandia)

purple pole beans

ground cherries (Aunt Molly's)

lima beans (Big Mama)

spinach (America)

bell peppers (purple beauty)

hot peppers (mustard habanero)

asparagus (Jersey giant)

arugula

basil (sweet Genovese)

cilantro

strawberries (3 types)

lettuce (8 types)

And Erik has finally agreed that this is the year of the Chicken! So eggs are hot compost are coming to a blogger near you.

It is January 2 and about 12 degrees outside. Most would agree that it's winter. But for me, it's springtime. And parts of me that have been crusted over by ice and buried in a snowbank are beginning to thaw. Beginning to believe that my life can be drawn back into it's old, more earthy orbit, and that soon my eyes will be filled with visions of green and growth and tiny, fluffy, helpless chicks wobbling about, squawking, just barely born.

And I will totally understand.