Spring is breaking and Lenten roses, harbingers of Holy Week, are supplicating in the sunshine — kind of the opposite of what vaxholes are doing in Miami. We’ll keep our white T-shirts dry in favor of a more socially distanced, stay-at-home vacay, although we’re not above a glass (or six) of this fierce herbalist’s homemade wine.
We can easily quench our thirst for adventure (and vicariously exhaust ourselves) by watching simple-living advocate Longmeimei grow bath accessories or turn her soybean crop into hairy tofu in the Chinese countryside. Or we can get a taste of the island life from this crazed coconut man husking a fresh one with his teeth.
Should our eyes shrivel from screen time, we’ll bump up “Plantasia” a self-released album of all-instrumental biophilia ballads that recently hit the charts — 40 years after it came out. And if that doesn’t induce a chlorophyll buzz, maybe we’ll read a horticultural info-comic, then self-photosynthesize by riding off into our sunset-illuminated bedroom wall after a hard day’s staycation.
With the weather turning, we could even go outside! The allergy forecast doesn’t look too achoo-y, so upcycle your leaving-the-house pants with some beet tye-dye, slip on your wood pulp Uggs, and strut to the nearest nursery to get uplifted by early bloomers — just remember to close the hot tub before you leave.
Video: Bear in hot tub is ‘having a blast’ in Gatlinburg
Did you spot any forsythia gussied up in yellow (even on Animal Crossing if you’re still screen fiending)? That means it’s time to prune roses and hoe off any weeds that are starting to rear their resilient heads.
With growing things popping up again, we’re having a hard time not recalling last year, when the virus was also springing. In memoriam, lawnowners are turning their turf into flag fields, and flower companies are donating heart-shaped wreaths to decorate the country (Wouldn’t it be sweet if they used faded blooms for incense like they do down by the Ganges?) And as National Farmworker Awareness Week begins, bang your biggest spoon on your heaviest pot (literally or philanthropically) for all of the farming, food processing, and meatpacking workers who made stress-eating, and recreational (vs. subsistence) gardening possible.
Even if our thumbs are a little greener after the last year, this spring feels like the last stages of a long trial. Iceland’s Forestry Service recommends hugging a tree (because someones can still be hard to come by). And keep your eyes on the soil: something new is breaking ground every day.
Leafy love,
Aerate