Drama?

or A Matter of Perspective

I can't figure out whether last week in New Mexico was one big, mad scramble or whether everything came to a screeching halt.  It felt like both, really.  Perhaps that's the essence of an emergency—a lot of frantic activity in an effort not to lose ground.

We actually had some severe weather, you see, the kind that seldom happens here, with snow, ice, Arctic winds, and bitter cold all at once.  Record-breaking sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures combined with natural gas shortages to deprive some 30,000 homes of heat, and led the governor to declare a state of emergency.  Schools were closed for four days; the universities, national labs, and state offices shut down to conserve gas.  Pipes froze and burst, furnaces went on the fritz (I had a little of that drama myself), some cities even had rolling blackouts.  Churches and school buildings turned into impromptu emergency shelters.  In Albuquerque, where many people don't own ice scrapers, let alone serious mittens or boots, many chose not to venture out at all.

So once the cold eased up and I'd had a chance to inspect the garden for damage, I just had to laugh at the contrast.   Yes, a couple of plants that weren't really thriving seem to have received the coup de grâce, and the ones that are only semi-evergreen have lost their leaves, but look what the Lady Jane tulips accomplished this week:

They've grown a good two to three inches since the last time I looked.  And the tarragon—one of the most tender plants I grow—broke ground in some new places:

The little nubs of crocuses coming up have turned into definite leaves, the catmint has fuzzy new growth at its base, and generally, most of the plants are acting like this weather never happened.

While all this drama has been carrying on in the human world, while we've all been fussing and worrying and hunkering down, the garden has been quietly getting on with things.  The realization made me catch my breath—it was one of those moments when you catch a brief glimpse into something alien and beautiful, when you realize what a different rhythm plants are attuned to and catch the faintest echo of it yourself.  The frantic tempo of wind and weather—so dangerous to us—doesn't really seem to matter to them.  Secure in their rootedness, pacing themselves to the slow ebb and flow of seasons, their priorities are elsewhere.  The days are lengthening; the sun is getting stronger.  And so, snow and wind and cold notwithstanding, buds are fattening, tulips leafing out, and new growth stirring underground.  It's as if the weather that affects us so powerfully is completely beyond their ken.

In the rock-paper-scissors game of gardening, of course, sometimes weather does trump seasonal instinct.  (I would encourage any plants that are listening to remember that our average last frost date isn't until the middle of April.)  But what a lovely manner of living—to be attuned to something beyond the fuss and bother of momentary squalls, to respond to a larger pull and tug toward life.

I almost want to say, "Amen."

Primordial Oomph

or Seeds, Up Close and Personal

As a friend who used to live in Minnesota is fond of saying, "There is no bad weather; there are only bad dressers."  For the most part I agree with her (at least, now that I live in New Mexico I do), but sometimes, despite mittens and hats and woolen scarves and woolen socks and long underwear and lined boots and parkas and knee warmers and layers—well, sometimes it's just nicer to stay indoors.

Combine staying-indoors kind of weather with the pleasant winter task of sorting through old seed packets to get rid of the ones that didn't thrive for two summers in row, the ones that thrived but that I didn't like, and the ones that by now are almost archaeological finds; combine all that, I say, with a really lovely idea for photographing Macros in a Mason Jar by David Perry at Gardening Gone Wild, and you end up with a totally enjoyable winter afternoon spent indoors taking pictures of seeds in jam jars, of course.

Seeds.  In a jam jar.

I am astonished by the results, not so much because of the photographic je-ne-sais-quoi, but because the seeds look so different than I had expected.  (Which now that I think about it, may count as photographic je-ne-sais-quoi.)  Seeing the seeds "writ large" blows me away.  The variations in texture alone range from papery "exoskeletons," pitted craters, and striations to cabbage-like folds to eggshell smoothness.  Colors show a depth and subtlety not visible from a distance.  And the individuality—forget from type to type.  Within each variety of seed, every particular specimen has its own shape, coloring, and texture that remains true to its species while being entirely one of a kind.

Each seed already seems to have a history.  When you think of a seed in part as the end result of a plant's life process, rather than just as the prototype for future generations, it makes sense.

I think what really takes me by surprise is the way seeds leap into life when seen at this scale.  They remind me of pebbles and shells on a seashore, things with an existence and a history in their own right, not just bland nothings destined to disappear underground until they're transformed into something important.  Normally when I think of seeds, I think of what they will become—"this will be a radish."  But seen at this magnitude, seeds just radiate life—not dormant life, but the real thing.  I am less amazed now that something so tiny has the power to turn into something 100 times its size, to put forth roots and leaves, to flower and bear fruit.  The primordial oomph is obvious.

Oh, who am I kidding—it's still amazing.