Damage, skin deep

You can imagine my chagrin when I looked out the window this morning and saw that there had been a pretty hefty looking frost. I don’t know what prompted me to rise and look out the window since I usually remain facing forward, propped up, nursing, for some 30 minutes, the cup of coffee that husband Stephen brings me on whatever schedule I ask for the night before.

However this morning, I looked out the window behind me, and the sight of the white grass got me out of bed, into my clothes and out, fondling the harvest of peppers, which were quite frozen -- or seemingly so.

What could I do? Done is done.

There would be no sense in complaining. There were no frost warnings: I had asked; Stephen had checked. The meteorologists had failed us. We had failed ourselves. The niggling thought that it was time to harvest everything had been preempted by whatever task I thought I needed to do, then.

The peppers were lost, plain and simple.

I returned to the garden with a basket to salvage what I could, thinking that if I roasted them right away, before they deteriorated into mush, they would still be worth something. Interestingly, while feeling frozen, there seemed to be no damage. Which is what turned out to be: the plants and fruit were totally covered in frozen water, but it had not permeated the surface. It was, as it were, not even skin deep.

Tonight, I collected the bounty of butternut squash and covered the remaining eggplants, parsley, peppers and tomatoes. I thought about how we can be injured skin deep. I thought about how we can be covered with frost, in our relationships, in our sluggish thinking. Yet, we sustain the harvest; we keep on our chosen path with a certain intensity and integrity. We, complete with the plants, ideals, projects, and gardens we foster, survive sudden freezing temperatures that fill the night air. We survive situations that encapsulate us and leave us, somehow, unaffected.

We persevere or maybe we’re just lucky.

Tonight, frost warnings or not, that which I did not harvest is protected from the chill.

May it be so in your life.