Curing

The first frost of the season swept death through my garden this week, separating the hangers-on from the truly cold-hardy. It was as if there had been a massacre while I slept.

The towering canna plants were crumbled practically to their knees. The basil had packed a suitcase and hightailed it out of town. Sweet little red plants, I still don't know what they were, were waving little white flags, and even my lingering yellow tomato plant bit the dust (but a bowlful of the yellow babies still adorns my kitchen counter, thankfully).

And the zinnias! The zinnias! Oh, my, my. There are no words for what one frosty night can do to a zinnia. I had been wondering if the zinnias would ever stop blooming outside my office window, if I would ever stop taking photos of butterflies on them, and if the bouquets on my kitchen table would ever lack of them. Well, take it from me. Their months of beauty and bounty ended harshly, suddenly, and completely.

While ripping the zinnias out to add them to the compost pile yesterday, I saw several Gulf Fritillary butterflies flittering about, not knowing what to do with themselves.

"Sorry, guys," I said, as sad and confused as they were.

Yet, there on the edge of my counter were the soaps that I made several weeks ago with dried calendula and lavender from my early summer garden, back when abundance was taken for granted.

The bars had been curing, which is the term used for when soap sits for awhile, being turned every day, so that excess water can evaporate out of it. But yesterday I looked at the soap with new eyes. It made me smile when I saw it, remembering the bursts of color that used to fill the garden, the children that played in the clover, the friends that visited, the harvests I've enjoyed, even the early autumn night I stirred the pot of olive oil and oatmeal and soap and herbs while reading the newspaper with my other hand as a gentle breeze blew in over the kitchen sink and the sun set outside my window.

"Yes," I thought while packing up the soap to send a little piece of my garden to my friends in Australia, where it is now springtime, as a thank you for hosting Flat Stanley. "The soap most definitely cures."

Curing