The breeze from the north felt hard but the almost-April sunshine is warm enough for us to want to walk down to the pastures with the dogs. I have a pan of chopped potatoes coated in olive oil and sprinkled with herbs waiting to roast. Bright green stalked of asparagus stacked into the depths of my cast iron pan and a Pavlova, round like an egg but light like a feather waiting to be filled with curd, raspberries from our freezer, and cream. We have a couple of hours before serving Easter dinner and decide to walk.
We were given a greenhouse by our neighbors and we walk past the cattle panels that will make up the arch of the roof. We talk about beginning tomatoes in our house under a grow light before moving them to the new greenhouse. As we creak open the metal gate to the pasture and pass the garden, we notice garlic fingers reaching through the dark soil. I take it as the true first sign of spring even as I crunch over dirty mounds of retreating snow. Our hibernation makes me feel slow, sluggish. Coming to the garden doesn’t feel familiar as it will in a month, but when I see the green of garlic straining up from under the hay in the beds, something in me begins to awaken.
We walk past the compost pile where we buried Sam and I’m able to do it without tears now. I look up and notice three ewes at the fence of the winter paddock, watching me watch them. They don’t call down. Not quite ready for greener pastures, they are content with their warm barn with easily accessible food.
Paul and I stand, watching the wind blow the grass. The willow tree in the corner of the field has a large branch hanging down, a victim of the heavy spring snow we had two weeks ago. Our kids gave him that tree as a father’s day gift one year long ago, and I’m sad to see white wood, like a fatal injury, and the limb dangling like a broken arm.
I try to bloom where I’m planted, to enjoy the “firsts” of each season. Spring’s garlic and the call of the Red Winged Blackbird, summer’s first swim in the cold river, the first cremee at the stand where we spend hot evenings after Vermont Mountaineers baseball games, first fires in the pit at camp, feeling sleepy and smelling smokey as we pull marshmallows off willow branches for s’mores.
I’ll watch the angle of the sun as we head into mid-August and in one day it will be different, the shadows longer and the sunshine pale. There will be a lonely silence without the Hermit Thrush. Driving on the highway I’ll lean my head back and notice the first tips of maple trees changing colors, like tie-dyed shirts. I’ll wake one morning, pull the window closed and sleepily drag the wool blanket out of retirement and up around my shoulders. I will love the tight orange skin of pumpkins and drinking cider straight from the press. I’ll tell everyone that fall is my favorite.
The first snow falls and ushers in the quiet season. We’ll hurry to find boots and warm jackets, never ready. When we open the door for our dogs in the morning, they will stop suddenly, quizzically, before launching headlong into the new powder. The first hot chocolate burns the roof of my mouth. We tag our Christmas tree without our kids now but feel the same joy and anticipation. The year becomes new, full of possibilities.
We don’t have special plans for the eclipse. I bought two pairs of paper glasses, hoping they work.
Newspapers tell us that there will be thousands of people headed our way, eager to be in the path.
Paul tells me that, without stars or a moon, it will be darker than I can imagine. I think about the challenges of the past few years and think that I can imagine.
Three minutes isn’t so long to be dark, especially when we believe the light will return.