Lessening

Most of what happens to us goes slowly, such as the morning you water the small parsley and see that it has browned, the reaction to the lessening sunlight on a poor windowsill.   Why not just go buy a few bunches to chop and freeze?  I guess I like the illusion of doing things on my own, of producing a plant from seed to clip for soups; production was meager, it really never was enough except for the minor excitement of see? I got parsley!  There was a crate of it at the farmer's market: fat, crisp, bouquets to flurry the knives through, making bits of green.

One past life, I learned to chop it quickly with two knives in each hand, it goes fine quickly but once minced, you are not done or you will have slime in half an hour in a hot kitchen.  Put the stuff inside a clean tea towel and however much green juice you wring out determines how fluffy, separate, and friable the end product will be.  The drier it is, the longer it lasts and the nicer it looks on a plate, each green speck standing alone.  Do this squeezing business when shredding potatoes for pancakes or hash browns, and the end product will also be lighter, with a nice crunch.

On the windowsill, there is also a beginning of an orange tree growing from seed that I hope will produce flowers.  My grandfather would start them and get wee, bitter oranges that weren't good for anything but see? I gotta orange!  I love the scent of orange blossoms and would wear that cheapola souvenir cologne from Florida, or add orange water to a pudding or cake frosting and just breathe it in.  This sapling stretches towards the light, pressing against the glass of the window.  Before the frosts come, I will move it back from the glass pane and give it a plant suntan with a lamp.

The leaves of growing things have aged, you can tell, even before the colored maples erupt.  Growth is slower, sparser, or not at all; weeds have gone to seed, and once tender sprouts are fibrous and woody.  Most things are tired, having put their energy into reproduction for the short northern season; the only frantic movement is from the wild animals eating all they can of this last, slowly gracious buffet of seed and shoot.  The groundhogs are loaded and round, the one crossing the street in front of my car last week was large as a Daschund.  His speed was clocked at walk, no running effort at his weight.  How the birds survive is a mystery; today I saw a tiny female finch sitting atop a spent echinacea blossom, less than five feet away from me.  She picked diligently at the seed, smartly working the husks.

It is the beginning of fall, noted by the constellation Pegasus rising in eastern dark.  Neptune and Uranus  rise aside it, Pisces below.  Blankets have been brought to the sofa, cozy all around for humans and cats, windows closed, kitchen now quiet.  Cyclic beings, we tend to drowse more at this latitude during fall and winter, a possible reason for the gaudiness of the holidays as enlivening tonics.  I like the thicker clothing and socks, and the finishing rituals of gathering produce for later suppers.  Apples are jarred as applesauce, and this year I will try making sauerkraut.

Sleep then, as you are meant to.  Climb in and under, pull covers up and let go of everything, for that is how we learn as we enter our dreams.  Mindstuff solidifies under deep layers of brain, you'd be amazed at the stages and levels of electrical activity that busies itself in the rooms of the cerebral while we sleep.
Night, oh night, how easy it is to fall in your lap.  Sleep well.