Health problems. New jobs. Summer vacation for the kiddies. Computer getting the binary version of the clap. Frustration with politics, both in the national sense and in the internet sense. Moving. Home ownership. Historical epiphanies.
What do all of these things have in common?
They've brought about the neglect of my bonsai. Both in physical and digital format.
The last months have been a rollercoaster ride. And my hobbies are always the first to suffer when things go crazy. Not only my online bonsai participation dropping to level zero, but even my trees themselves suffered neglect this summer. While I only lost three trees (two due to watering mishaps involving a relative and vacation time, and one for unknown, boggling reasons. I will miss that mugo pine.), what I truly lost was a season worth of work. Fortunately, in a life long hobby, a single season seems small in the scheme of sixty years or more if I'm lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view).
While I know that on a logical level, it sometimes feels like a physical blow when I look at my benches, and realize that I have acomplished *nothing* this year, other than the basic task of keeping these small reflections of myself alive with the bare minimum of care. Which oddly enough, reflects the effort I've put in to myself as well since April.
Winter, as always, is a quiet time for bonsai, though I have much to do still before cold weather hits here. While repottings, trimings, wirings and a number of other verbs ending in -ing will have to wait, there are still things that I can do with certain trees, and preperations to begin for winter care and protection, now that the backyard is of a significantly (read: less protected) different quality.
Where does this leave me? With the nursery season tapering off, my time (and hopefully energy) will be rising again. And especially once the cold of winter hits, with less to do tree wise, my time will again turn to books and the computer. I hope this winter to come closer to completing the Kitsune Bonsai project, get back involved on the forums, and generally set myself to remembering just who I am outside of everything but my own mind.
As the crazy fades away, I get a chance to remember that it is not a defining part of life. Merely a symptom of it.
Posts
Refining a field-grown cork bark elm
16 hours ago
2 comments:
Hi, Heather.
Lost seasons are lost opportunities, which is still better than lost trees, which we all have done. Moving will do that to you, life changes, etc. One thing that bonsai needs perhaps even more than kids and pets, is stability.
Hang in there. Glad to have you around.
Chris
I'm hanging, I'll keep hanging! At least, that's the plan ;)
Glad to still be around.
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