Living through the year

Grandpa Pehrson's rule was don't plant before Mother's Day. He wasn't being difficult. He was being a florist who had watched enough springs to know that eagerness and wisdom are not the same thing — and that the frost will teach you which one you used.

Spring in the kept home is not a reset. It is a resumption. You notice what survived the winter and you tend it. You open the windows when the air is finally ready. You plant, with appropriate caution, and you watch.

Summer is the season of abundance — which means it is also the season when the kitchen feels most alive and most demanding at the same time. The tomatoes don't wait. The basil bolts if you leave it too long. There is a speed to summer that has nothing to do with busyness and everything to do with attention.

The sunflowers go on the table in summer. They are not precious. They are the least precious flower, and that is exactly why they belong here. A small defiance: I have decided what makes me happy and stopped negotiating with the seasons about it.

The kept home doesn't stumble into autumn. It prepares. Not anxiously — with the same quiet intention that smooths a duvet or tucks a bedsheet over a tomato plant in the dark. The pantry fills. The windows come down. The candles come out.

Winter is the season of the interior. The home turns inward. The light goes early. The question the season asks is: what have you kept, and what has kept you?

I light a candle in winter for no reason in particular. Not for ambiance, not for a photograph, not for a guest. Just because the light is welcome. This is a small thing. Small things are what winter is made of — the morning routine, the made bed, the mug that is heavier than it needs to be, held in both hands. The whole point of the mug is the holding.