TALES FROM A FAR NORTH FOREST

AFTER WEEKS OF ISOLATION, POLLY CONSIDERS THE LESSONS OF LOCKDOWN

Polly considers the lessons of lockdown

IT WAS A GIFT from the sea. After a storm, our local beach lay buried beneath a thick, shag-pile carpet of seaweed. The unruffled sea and sky were pearlescent blue mirrors of stillness, yet some invisible energy still effervesced in between. It felt infectious. Strangers hailed one another with beaming faces as everybody stuffed sacks, car boots and trailers with the ocean's bounty.

It was a day for savouring the little things. Level 4 lockdown had ended. Like moles emerging above ground, we blinked in the sparkling sunshine and inhaled the seaweed's rich musky tang. For five long weeks, everybody had been shut away. Now, it was as if a cloud of collective anxiety was clearing. Blue skies are a feeling as well as a vista. Immersed in the moment, we were light of both heart and step.

The seaweed came home as an offering. Year after year, our gardens and fruit trees feed us. It always feels good to give nutrients back. A friend said this seaweed was from fathoms deep; you could feel its potency. “Thank you,” the soil seemed to breathe as I mounded it around the kale.

We were meant to be in Peru. We'd chosen a route through the mountains and picked certain towns and villages to serve as bases during our four-month foray. Instead, we were trying to extract a refund from the airline. It was like wrestling an octopus. Why can't things be straightforward?

The garden is. Sometimes when tending to raised vegetable beds, I feel a stab of loss for the great adventure we'd planned. We'd been aiming to take the kids overland into Bolivia as well. Oh to return to those vast brown landscapes and the clarity of high-altitude air. “Be here now,” the garden always whispers. Self-seeded spinach doesn't care how things should or shouldn't be. Life is an unstoppable succession of moments. Some things are beyond our control. Tiny green arrows rise from the earth. “Keep seeking the light,” they murmur. For humans, that's a choice we can consciously make.

There's wisdom in the garden. The knowledge is fundamental but straightforward. What you tend, you get more of. Good things take time. Reap what you sow. Every year I let at least one of each food plant go to seed. Under the hot summer sun, lettuce turns into spires and silverbeet erupts into a froth. I always mean to harvest the seeds for future planting but I've been lazy. At the Kaitaia market, you can buy heirloom seedlings super cheaply. Except you can't in a lockdown. Suddenly I realized a weak link in our connection to the land. James and I sighed with relief as self-seeded crops began to sprout randomly.

We came to our forest with plans for increased self-sufficiency. If corporatocracy's dependency structure ever ceased distributing, we planned on being OK. We had built community, compost heaps and orchards, and learnt useful skills such as hunting, preserving, breadmaking and carpentry. We'd simplified our needs, gone organic, started trading and gained a spirituality in the process that placed us as part of a limitless whole. And yet what good was all of that if I'd failed to save seed?

The lockdown was a teacher on the merits of independence. Remember the dreadful uncertainty back when it began? As we faced an indefinite home confinement, with projected death counts set to punch holes in everyone's social fabric, there was toilet-paper panic and the nation sold out of flour and vegetable seedlings. Everyone felt the fragility of supermarket food chains and the need for self-reliance.

“What are you going to do differently as a result of the past few months?” a friend asked recently. I'm going to stop taking the good things for granted. Freedom and hugging and access to libraries are things to cherish. I'm also saving seeds. There lies our next harvest.

“Plant with intention,” the garden reminds me. What we get in the future depends on what we sow and cultivate today.