A Settling Season
Hours, days, weeks of whirlwind change have definitively challenged and enriched this calendar year for me. You, my community, have provided me time away for my wedding and subsequent move. Now I’m settling in to a new routine here at our snow-encapsulated farmhouse. Beneath the gray skies, sudden winter cold, and unexplored woods, towns, and rivers of my new home I find myself more grateful than ever before for the simple act of measuring herbs and bottling tinctures. The freshness of a new place is both enchanting and intimidating, future possibilities enshrouded in blurry borders of choices yet to be made. What I know for certain is the land is waiting for me out there. Our soil is buried under silent snow, sitting in quiet dormancy to rest for one final winter before greeting me with enthusiasm as I bury the fragile roots of plants it will nourish come spring.
Branches are bare with the exception of a handful of willful orange leaves clinging on, catching the wind in a dance as it moves through the space between heavy wooden limbs. Outside the world prepares to pause, while inside I am joyously bringing back to life my workshop of plants in tandem with making this unfamiliar house feel like home. This is a settling season, our first year, first month, in our new home. Becoming aquatinted with each corner, the view from each window, the sounds of an old house breathing and readjusting its old bones, all wrapping around me as we prepare for the holiday season. Steaming cups of spicy chai, the smell of cranberries and cinnamon, creating space to share our new home with friends near and far, and furtively standing post at the stove while I measure, strain, stir, and bottle enough jars to restock the shelves of the apothecary. This is what I do best. I’m thrilled to be back, and it is with intention for the long term I order seed catalogs, study greenhouse plans, organize my shelves and take stock of all I have to learn about my new place on this earth, as part of this new land.
Thank you for being here with me, for holding space in this transition. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be home.
-Jenn
