Hardly deciduous

I don’t think I’ve really rested in over a decade- like a deep, restorative, takes time to get the nutrient and flavor sort of rest- like water, spice, and bone sitting on the stove for 12 hours- nearly bone broth- diffusing what I imagine hardiness smells like.

I’ll confuse rest and fun quite often- their similarities lying only in an absence of work, but nowhere else in their essence. With fun bubbling and rest steeping- rarely yielding something similar.

On a recent, rainy, Sunday in late fall, I found myself on the couch, restless about my to-do list, yet unable to dredge up the energy to mobilize. I started reading about perennial plants and their dormancy. For these plants, dormancy declares when to prepare their soft tissues for freezing temperatures, dry weather, or water and nutrient shortage. Instead of attempting to grow in hostile conditions, plants hunker down, storing up energy for when the growing conditions are better. This period of arrested growth allows roots to continue developing and thriving. In dormancy, these plants are thriving underground- despite their outward declaration of scarcity. These months of steely survival produce everything needed for another spring.

If plants were insistent on production, it would not only be inefficient, but also harmful. If plants were to remain actively growing in the winter, the water stored in their stems, leaves, and trunks would freeze, damaging the bark and tissue.

This is why, when a freeze occurs in late spring or early fall, panic ensues in the gardening community. The guest room bed sheets are brought out of linen closets, carefully draped over tender plant flesh.

Yet, do we consider this same harm to the tender parts of our soul? In the dark, cold lonely seasons of our life, must we insist on growing? Productivity at all times, of course. I will get a new certificate at work! run a faster mile! and learn some basic Japanese! Oh, and have fun! Adventure! buckets lists! new hobbies! new friends! What if, instead, we practice dormancy. We take intentional, self- indulgent care of oneself. And simply wait until the season turns a corner. 

Of course, not all plants are deciduous. Even more, evidently some plants can manage when planted in different climates. Tomato vines, for example, live several years in their natural tropical/subtropical habitat but are grown as annuals in temperate regions. In my feverish addition to ambition, my instincts have dulled to winter’s call. I’ve somehow transplanted my soul to Miami - with ever-present warmth and light disrupting my natural rhythms. I’ve been obedient to alarm clocks and florescent lighting for far too long. In the constant pursuit of summer, the resilience of my roots has been compromised, and I’m susceptible to pests.

Ironically, all projections say Miami will be underwater in 50 years, yet new beachfront condos are being built every year. In the pursuit of entertainment and pleasure, we miss the signals. We miss the invitation to a contemplation that is born in the dark.

Of course, radical rest requires breaking down where my identity is mixed up with my output- and, from this space of detachment, I can finally surrender to the call of retreat and then flow out again into the energy of warm evenings.

This breaking down has been the greatest work of my life. Genuine surrender takes time, or movement, or breaking.

For me it’s always been the breaking.

In the breaking i’m not as sturdy as I used to be, but far more honest. I feel authentic, but also lopsided - and leaky- nodding in respect to my own beautiful limits. And then. in the still, dark, cold- there is mending.