hurry up and wait

First order of business: SOMETHING GREEN IS COMING UP! Over in the terraced area on the edge of the wooded hillside, on the west side of the house.

TA-DAH!!!!! YAY!!!

I don’t know what this is. Possibly a Siberian Iris – we have a few of those – but I’m not sure yet.
Second order of business: that was a witch-hazel after all. I’d been thinking, buckthorn, but no no no, I was totally and completely mistaken. Let’s compare:

This, is a buckthorn. Specifically, it’s alder-buckthorn, Rhamnus frangula. Like the witch-hazel buds, the bud is naked – no scales –but it’s TEENSY – less than a quarter inch long. This is an invasive shrubby tree that’s a bitch to eradicate.

Here’s the guy I was confused by yesterday.

I now realize it is a witch-hazel after all (Hamamelis virginiana). This bud is massive by comparison – easily a half inch long. The more I look around, the more witch-hazel I see. Funny how that works. Well, I’m glad I got that cleared up. [editor’s note: nope. It’s not witchhazel.]

In other news, I figured out how to zoom on something in the near-to-middle distance and get it to focus properly:

More witch-hazel – this time, old flowers.

Would you like to know how I feel these days?

Blegh.

There is a lot going on under the surface, but not much to show for it yet. This is the side of the driveway, and in no time, it will have Siberian Iris, daffodils, ferns galore, at least one fabulous globe thistle, eventually some asters, and no doubt lots of other things. But right now, it doesn’t look like there’s much going on, huh.

Or, shall I compare me to a summer’s day barely perceptibly ripening sugar maple bud? You can see it’s swelling because of the bands of lighter color that are revealed under the edges of the bud scales. But we’re a ways off from happy little maple leaves. Grow, baby, grow!

AAARRRRGGHHHHHH!! I love my life, don’t get me wrong. I am one lucky girl. I do pretty much exactly what I want, all day, every day. I started this sabbatical barely able to do more than sleep, and allow stress to work itself out of my body one muscle twitch at a time. Over the past year and a half, I’ve run my first 10K and half-marathon. I’ve become a Reiki Master, and have been volunteering at the oncology unit of a local hospital. Plus, I’ve already taught Reiki Level 1 a bunch of times – something I thought would take at least a year to get launched. I’ve gone from being a total hermit, to joining a community chorus. I’ve apparently taken up nature photography. And I’ve gone from having a totally secret blog, that literally nobody knew about, to blithely posting links to it on Facebook for all 250 or so of my Facebook friends to ignore at their leisure. And, call me crazy, which if you know anything about my recent work experience, you would, I’ve been appointed to my town’s newly-formed conservation commission. (We have yet to meet. I’m the only member so far.)

So I’ve made great strides. But I still have Literally No Idea what to do next with my life. I’ve had a great run as a management/information systems consultant for corporate environmental/health/safety departments. That was two lifetimes ago. I’ve done this whole civic engagement/community development gig. That was one lifetime ago. But now what?

Volunteering at the hospital giving Reiki to patients is f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s. I could do Reiki all day, I think. But for some reason, I am loathe to scout out potential spaces to rent in any of the various wee-little-downtowns around here to set up shop. I am loathe to put up fliers. Ugh. I’ve got flier allergy, I think. Some of all this is undoubtedly your garden-variety resistance. But I’m pretty sure that there’s more to it than that. There is, as I said, a lot going on under the surface that needs to come to the next stage of ripeness before ta-dah, more little green shoots appear above the surface.

Be patient, says garden Buddha.