I wanted to ask you how you really are? Because I know I’m typing emails, having quick conversations with people, conversing with my family – all these things sometimes snatched in what feels like tiny moments of time in a household that in my case is full of people.
So I wanted to really know and really ask – how are you?
And it’s a question I offer you to ask yourself. How am I today?
And do you know what, whatever the answer that’s ok – it’s the giving it space and time to breathe that’s important.
On Monday (I think it was Monday but frankly who even knows anymore) I was not good – I was grumpy, short, impatient with the kids, fractious with my partner, feeling the effects of the prolonged sharing of physical space with five other humans. And do you know what made the difference – a trip to the allotment, visiting the frogs we installed to eat the slugs and digging a potato plot!
I fully appreciate that in this strange time (or any time for that matter) we can’t all access an allotment. However, I’ve been thinking about this and what the elements were that made it work:
- The kids had some physical space from one another – one in the shed eating snacks, one digging soil, one contemplating frogs
- The physical act of digging clumpy soil – there was something in the silent, repetitive, slightly aggressive (!) action – I think it released some of the tension I was holding in my body
- The kids had adequate snacks – I highlight this because none of the rest of it would have been possible otherwise
- I could look up and out beyond my immediate surrounding – I had a sense of horizon
- I saw other people (at a safe distance) and they too were working on building, and growing something – and I remembered my connectedness to something collective and bigger than my little unit.
So if you’re feeling fractious, sluggish, or a bit blue – what is it that you need? Air, rest, physical exercise, horizon, connection, or is it more snacks ; )