Reaching the Bottom

Bleak.  That’s what it looks like to me, all of it.  My little raised bed, my yard, my house.  At some point every winter that’s what everyone’s yard looks like.  It’s cold.  (The persimmon seed prediction turned out to be fairly accurate, for the record.)  The only 50 Shades of Grey I can see is the sky.  We all react in different ways to the depths of winter; some of us escape into seed catalogues, some of us take to the bottle, some of us get involved with holidays or parties or social outings, some of us escape for real in a plane or car headed to warmer climes.

And…some of us feel a little stuck, not knowing what to do next.  I’ve checked out a little bit, I guess.  I’ve been writing on other projects, distracted by friends’ comings and goings.  The stretch of holidays from Halloween to Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and Mardi Gras—the fattest of all Tuesdays—is calling me to make gumbo and to get in touch with my Catholic alter ego, if only to be part of the Lenten countdown to spring.  But I have to admit I feel a bit lost.  Purse strings and calorie counts are tightened after Christmas, of course, and I’m pretty much on auto-pilot to shop local, eat local, cook local, and even to do some shopping at home.  Trying to get busy to chase away the winter blues/blahs I’ve cleaned out the fridge and a cupboard or two in hopes that I’ll be able to fill them again with summer’s bounty.  I’ve managed to empty and clean out one of my chest freezers, then will relocate the contents of the second freezer to the first and do the same for the second. 

In the course of emptying my freezer, though, I found a metaphor for my dilemma.  Turns out, once I’ve emptied everything out, used pliers to open the drain on the inside, and opened the drain on the outside, and I can see every bit of spilled muck and breadcrumbs and twistie-ties lying on the bottom, I find I can’t actually reach the bottom.  My arms are too short, my frame not elastic enough.  Dammit!  My attempts even to gain a sense of accomplishment from the menial tasks of cleaning have been thwarted.  What to do?  I mean, I can see the bottom from here, and I suppose I could use a mop or a wet vac to get it clean, but I prefer to do the thing that will get the job done best.

I’ll ask someone else for help.

You see, we’re all kind of crabby, stuck inside the same four walls.  And if I ask for help from my fellow Winter Doldrummers, maybe we can all get through this together, and out the other side with a sense of accomplishment.  And maybe, just maybe, though I can see the bottom, it will be a comfort to know that I can’t actually reach it.  And I will always have my team—my little family—to help me get the job done, and get everything back on track.

Now…time to look for gumbo recipes…