The Fear, The Ash, The Itch
a parable
The February Fear
We’re halfway through February, and I’m suddenly aware of all of the winter tasks I was supposed to get done that I only have a few short weeks to accomplish before the days get longer and warmer.
It’s a daunting list. I still need to prune the apple tree—cutting a VERY fine line, there—as well as trimming any other shrubs around the property that could do with a trim. I also need to organize the greenhouse, start getting the garden tidied of debris, prepare the new garden beds, ask husband to repair a few structures that are falling apart, and start another round of seeds, like our beloved peas.
Phew.
And the February Fear is starting to lurk just under the surface, the increasing anxiety that I’ll drop everything I want to juggle, this year. The vague (and dubious) optimism of January’s new-year-ness starts to fade under February’s gray reality as I realize just how many things I want to do well, to do justice to...and fear that I won’t.
The fear isn’t exactly unfounded. Last year, I dropped the ball on our garden, and it was pretty disappointing.
I can give myself enough grace to recognize that the reason I stepped away from the garden was because I had picked up an exciting new project: devoting my attention to Talebones, my then-brand-new fiction newsletter. But the lack of garden was felt, especially in the fall and winter. No overflowing supply of fresh greens for our salads. No bags of frozen homegrown peas in the freezer. No jars of pickles. No bottles of dried herbs.
Everything that flourished in the garden last year did so in spite of me, and it wasn’t much, especially compared to previous years.
Thankfully, Talebones grew where the garden did not, so the time was spent well. But still. I worry, increasingly, that I’ll struggle to do both. To write well, to garden well, and to serve my community and my family with both.
Dust To Dust
I’m writing this parable with ashes on my forehead, and they’re starting to itch.
Since we don’t have a church nearby that observes Ash Wednesday, they’re homemade ashes. As in, I took them from our woodstove, mixed them with a little water, and put them on my own brow in a cross.
I spoke the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” as I did so, and an involuntary shiver ran through me as I heard them pass my lips. What portentous words those are, so far removed from the way we like to think, these days.
I know it’s not how the ashes for Ash Wednesday are traditionally supposed to be done. It’s supposed to be the ashes of last year’s palms from Palm Sunday, burned, but I didn’t have any palms from last year, and besides…it’s the symbol that counts, right?
Right?
The dog stares, as I sit at the computer with ashes on my head. But he’s getting used to his human mother’s strangeness, so he soon huffs himself into a napping position and lets me get on with it.
The water has long since dried, and I can feel the ashes against my skin every time I move my facial muscles. I long to itch them, but then I remember what they are, and I drop my fingers.
Itches that I can’t scratch feel very apt, right now. Very February. Very Lenten.
Sometimes the symbol is a bit too on-the-nose.
I’m aware that in the grand scheme of my life, and of human history in general, my current fears are a small thing. That I probably won’t even remember “The Summer I Tried To Write And Garden Well At The Same Time And It Was Challenging” when I’m forty-five, or sixty-seven, or ninety-two.
(Gosh, I hope I don’t still remember it, then!)
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. These things are so temporary, and so am I.
Why do they feel so huge, right now? Why do I feel so small, and yet so easily toppled from a great height?
The Good Itch
There’s another kind of itch, a good itch. It’s the itch I get when I want to hyperfocus on something, to get into a flow state and just let my thinking mind disappear down the river of doing. Of tending.
I get it most easily when I’m cooking.
I never overthink cooking. It’s pure instinct, pure flow. It’s a little of this, a little of that. Taste, adjust, keep moving. Does it work? Good. Delish. Eat it. Share it. Nourish yourself and others with it.
The best itch. Contagious. More, please.
It might sound a little silly, but I genuinely feel like I’ve got friendly ancestors whispering in my ear when I’m cooking, in some oddball Ratatouille-style puppeteering.
They whisper: Just do it. Don’t think too hard. You won’t mess it up if you go with it. Improvise. More garlic. Always more garlic!
The other day, husband asked if we had any salsa, and I grabbed one of my homemade jars from two years ago and popped it open. The feeling was electric, and for one glorious minute the February Fear vanished. Because there’s nothing—and I mean nothing—like the feeling of popping open one of your own jars of homemade preserves. It’s impossible to describe.
It’s even better when you grew the stuff yourself. Green tomatoes, hot peppers, cilantro, onions…
That salsa gave me the itch. The good kind. The one that makes you want to do that again, to grow enough good stuff that you can cook it up into a glorious batch of something delicious and serve it to the people you love. There’s nothing like it!
I garden to cook. I cook because of stories. I tell stories so that I can grow. It’s some kind of circle, some kind of glorious dance. Round and round.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We’re so impermanent, so temporary! Why do we spend so much time afraid?
I don’t know. I wish I did.
Until then, we all need to eat, and we all need to hear stories.
And so, I reach for soil and seed and page and pen, and I pray a blessing on the fear, the ash, and the itch. May they be whatever they must be, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Out of my hands into the warm and waiting palms of God.
Amen, and amen, and amen.
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"... and I pray a blessing on the fear, the ash, and the itch." What a beautiful piece! It seems you wove all the right lessons together in your lenten devotion :)
“Out of my hands into the warm and waiting palms of God.”
Love that.
This whole post was a very timely message - like the bow on the package of a conversation I just had this morning!