Stillness
Lessons from the garden
Do you know stillness? I try to know it. But my knowing mostly looks like observing; I rarely take a moment to be totally and completely still. This is certainly a symptom of early motherhood; stillness and mobile kids don’t usually pair well. But it’s also a symptom of being a modern human, and of a culture that’s conditioned us to be productive and efficient above all else. The only reason I’m writing this newsletter today is because I have been forced into stillness, sidelined to the couch to ride out a pesky virus. Even now, as I am quite literally sitting still, I know will still succumb to the scroll, or another distraction. The needless check in to see if there’s anything new out there that might capture my attention. And there, is, of course. There is always something to be seen, to be done, no matter the season or affliction.
So after I am done refilling the bird feeder I pause to look over at the winter garden under a blanket of snow. And I try to learn. It appears to be still. Silent, dormant, resting. But then I see it: a small green leaf, reaching up through the ice, toward the sun, toward a breath of air. It’s kale, emerging after a spell of well below freezing weather, a remnant of my fall garden that I did not till under. What a little stinker is all that I can think. It’s admirable, this little leaf, but I also take note that its effort is mostly futile. It looks frostbitten and is probably inedible. It won’t be eaten by us, at least; I’ll throw it out for the deer. But dammit if that little kale does not make me want to persevere! To create something in a season that tells me I shouldn’t. And also to lean into stillness, to rest. All at once. I did that this week, when I asked my mom if the kids could spend the night so I could just be still. But in the quiet, I have also been creating. Because in stillness we can often find inspiration. Whether that pushes us toward rest (being) or movement (doing), is variable. And maybe futile. Even nature, sometimes, has trouble figuring out which one to choose. Do you?
We probably all already know this. It feels a little like a duh moment. But we’re I am not great at implementing the knowledge. I took a lengthy pause — a sort of stillness — from this newsletter by getting lost in summer, then fall, then winter, all with my kids. It was an accidental stillness, really, a tumbling into being instead of doing. I’m glad to be back now, though probably not every week, but maybe every month. Every once in a while, at least. I look forward to meeting y’all here. Until then, let’s talk about:
Things I do when I’m trying to be still
Read!
I read two books last week while on vacation. I was vacationing with my kids and my parents, so this actualization felt truly miraculous. I read the final installment of the Riley Ellison mystery series by Columbia author Jill Orr, and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. And I’m joining in on Plain Jane’s Great Jane Austen Read-Along, in celebration of 250 years of Jane Austen. This is my first go ‘round reading these novels, and I’m excited. You can join in too, right here!
Think about making Chef Gaby’s Chicken en Cocotte.
Gaby posted this recipe on the Leftovers Community blog last month, and as I sit confined to the couch today, I think of it as the only thing I’d really like to eat while the snow falls again.
Look up how to properly store potatoes
Because at 32 I do not yet know these things, and I found a bag of forgotten potatoes in my kitchen today. I have a habit of letting them sprout and keeping them anyway as kitchen decor, or pawning them off on a friend to try to grow. Both ways of dealing with sprouted potatoes have been successful, I must say. So I read this today, in hopes that 2025 will be the year of fewer potato sprouts + more potato dishes in my household. May it be yours as well!
Listen to Tina Casagrand Foss and Janet Saidi talk River Town
This duo plus an excellent team of students made a stellar podcast — sort of like a love letter — to and about the Missouri River last year, called River Town. Last night, they spoke about it at the Big Muddy Speaker Series in Columbia. I meant to make it to this event last night, but alas, the germs had other plans. Then Tina sent me this recording this afternoon, and now I feel like I was there. You can too!
Watch the snow fall and dream of a spring garden, and of the possibility of returning to my role as a tomato evangelist again this year.
I am hoping that writing this though the haze of a virus has not produced something totally insane, but rather entertaining, or maybe in some sense useful. Let me know either way, if you please (in the comments, in an email, in a message sent via carrier pigeon). Meet you back here next time.
