Before this year, I thought I knew what grounded me. I thought it was my freedom and my endless months of traveling. The people I met along the way and the thousands of lives I’ve quietly walked past on my way back to hotels. I was so blinded by the hustle and bustle of big, foreign cities and the countless time zones I was living in, that I didn’t realize that my lifestyle was really just a distraction.

Getting my hands and feet dirty in the soil that is going to provide for me is what truly grounds me. Creating life out of seeds and through care and nurturing is what grounds me.

As the harvesting season comes to an end in our corner of the world, my husband and I spent a short day in the garden turning over all the wilting wildflowers, making sure there were no potatoes left unturned and unrooting all the tomato plants at the end of their career. Touching them all from their leaves, to their stalks, to their roots. Thanking them for everything they’ve provided for us, both in their nutrition and their company. Grateful for the lessons they’ve taught us about what both the earth, and what we and habitants of it, are capable of.

Every ending is a new beginning. While there are numerous vegetables that could survive a few more months of the cold up here in Canada, we’re deciding to give ourselves and the earth a few months of rest. This next season in our lives will be one of reflection and appreciation for everything this year has taught us. I strive to go into the next growth year with the same sense of time as I had found this year and know that I continue to make time for what matters to me. I look forward to creating my own time zone in my garden and letting the hours spent out there slip past me the same way I used to spend my layovers in unfamiliar cities.