Waiting On The Garden

Today is April 6th. In other years, I would be planting peas by now. As it is, we have had snow for the last 3 days. The soil is soggy and cold and I will not be planting today. Mother Nature will send me her signal when it is time. I will know by her yellow “go” signal. As I have been told by wise gardeners before, “when the forsythia blooms, it's time to plant the peas.” No forsythias yet.
This reminds me of when I was a young college sophomore and I desperately wanted to find true love. I have always been the type of person who needs to commit to an exclusive relationship, longing for a soul-mate throughout my growing-up years. By my 20th birthday I figured I had waited long enough. I was so ready to find that one person to be connected to forever. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. The following summer I began dating my sweetheart and we were married a year later.
There is always something I am waiting for. Graduations, marriages, births, sending the first child to school, sending the last child to school, the start of the growing season, the end of it. My children measure their lives around the 4 cardinal holidays of Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and their polar star: Christmas. “How many days until my birthday, Mom”, they ask when it's still 11 months away. Do we spend too much time waiting and not enough doing? Maybe.
But, think of this. If we never had winter, when would we plan our gardens? If we didn't have to wait for babies to be born, how would we prepare? If we never struggled through a period of temptation or failure, why would we ever set goals?
And I am living now. I'm nurturing seedlings indoors so they will be ready to go out as soon as possible. My vegetable patch is “shovel ready”: all graphed out with a list of needed supplies. Also, I am nurturing my youngest child as he is preparing to go to Kindergarten next year. I'm cleaning my house and progressing on craft projects that necessarily must go on the shelf when the yard work begins.
Wait time is not “great” time, but it has a purpose. Soon enough, the skies will clear, the temps will warm, the winds will die (or not) and I will have a fresh blister in the bend of my thumb earned by creating all of those raised beds. Not long after that, I will hear from my youngest boy, “Mom, how many days until it snows?”