The start of the cold season has truly started when there is frost on the ground and I have to scrape the windows of the car. Well, I shouldn't have to scrape the windows much these days as I have a garage and an engine warmer, but the garage is full and the key to start the engine warmer was in the car, which kind of defeats the purpose.
After dropping Smallsteps to daycare and before my first session for the day started, I grabbed a few pictures before my fingers froze. The weather has been relatively warm this Autumn, so minus three Celsius seems really cold - minus twenty five is going to be horrible.
While I was exploring the garden, I was surprised to find a couple of strawberries that were near ripe, though now were frozen solid, so won't be so great to eat. Mid-October is definitely not prime strawberry season, but the color was welcome, since most of the garden is nearing the winter hibernation period, with most of the leaves fallen and nothing new growing.
The mint seems to still be growing a little, but I am lpretty disappointed in it, as I didn't make even one mojito in the summer, which was the whole reason for having mint in the first place. We did add it to some homemade rhubarb punch for Smallsteps' birthday, which was great - but no mojito.
There is something I find calming about the frosty mornings, perhaps because they are generally so still and the dusting of ice subdues and powders the colors, like the desaturated scenes from a depressing period film depicting the 1930s.
They say there are 10 million Finns in Finland, 5 million summer Finns and 5 million winter Finns and I have found this to be pretty much true, as the collective mood subdues and turns a little grayer and negative. People tend to look at the ground a lot more as well, which makes it all a little more reflective and perhaps people realize how empty their own lives are - until the sun returns and they can drink on the terraces and drown their sorrows from the colder months, while fearing their return the next season.
There is still a little bit of color around, if looking on the ground - which means I have to rake the last of the leaves from the grass when I have a chance, so that the lawn doesn't get suffocated.
I don't get depressed in the winter, though the dark times when there are no leaves on the trees, no snow on the ground and all light is absorbed into the damp abyss, isn't the most pleasant time of year. It is more the inconvenience of it that annoys me the most, as the dog ends up needing to be washed every time we take him outside and driving isn't enjoyable.
When all the plants seemingly die each year, it is a reminder about the cyclical nature of life and how no matter how full of life something was, everything has its time. The seeds of tomorrow are planted today and while they appear dead, they are just biding their time for the right conditions to start their journey, a new cycle.
I am hoping that next year will be better than this, though I do not let my hopes get to far ahead of me these days, as with so much dependent on other people who are seemingly driven solely by fear and a quest for stability at any cost, disruption and social instability seem to be the new normal. Perhaps average people have lived in a period of relative calm for long enough that they no longer know what a real threat to life is.
But everything has its cycles.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
