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Greetings friends and family!
The month of May has a way of grabbing your attention. There’s no doubt about it. No matter what we have going on, all that ‘stuff’ seems to take a back seat to the wonderful and, sometimes brutal, ways nature unfolds before us in springtime. The glory of stems, leaves and flowers juxtaposed against massive rainfall, floods and storms. It’s easy, even within our well-connected modern world to sometimes be oblivious to the sights & sounds of what is happening a world away, and even surprisingly in our own ‘backyards.’ That old saying about slowing down and taking time to smell the roses gets really put to practice in our current global situation amid the era of Coronavirus.
Now more than ever before, people are forced to slow down, to stop in their tracks, quite literally, and to do so whether there are roses to smell, figuratively or not. Perhaps my personal ‘isolating’ and maintaining personal distance has been easier to accept since it so closely resembles my daily existence ‘pre’-virus. I am somewhat isolated in my daily life here in Finland. There aren’t old school chums to catch up with, there aren’t cousins, nephews/nieces or aunts & uncles to pop over to visit.
For other people, I understand this period of isolation has been extremely difficult to accept and manage. I truly believe the forced closure of daily life has revealed many inconvenient truths. One of which I think revolves around the fact that many people have ‘busied’ themselves for years with non-essential travel, expenditures and living a lifestyle which is BUSY, *but* without substance. Do you think this is a harsh statement? Do you agree? Do you see things in a similar but different way?
There are projects which I now have *ample* time to pursue, and strangely, I still consider them to be uninteresting enough to spend the time to do them. Who else is in this boat? Is this a symptom of my privilege? Obviously, there are many among us in society who are continually doing things they find uninteresting, just to survive.
The era of Coronavirus has become a critical episode in our modern history. Because of the virus, we may very well be standing on the threshold of what our collective future *might* be -*could* be. Not a future of plague, death and deceit. But a future full of new possibilities and modes of conduct; a future which comes from a reshaped past, a future brought forward with new beginnings, a future that is *willing* to learn from the lessons of the past.
In a minuscule way, the aspects of ‘new beginnings,’ transformation,’ and the prospects of what the future holds is entirely relatable to gardening and sums up what transpires in a garden every springtime, and nearly always in the month of May.
If the following examples from our garden give you any sense of hope I am glad! Should you ever need a friend, please reach out! We are here! vanhatalosuomi@yahoo.com
Peace and Love-
VanhaTaloSuomi ❤
Vanha Talo Suomi 
First of all, your garden is gorgeous!!! You are lucky to be where you are. I think your words are the brutal truth and people need to take note. We are all learning the value of what we do each day and stripping away the dead wood. Hopefully we will retain what we have learned and the world will be a better place. It could happed . . . I am well and I have the peace to paint and write when I want. I quite like the solitude. At least I have a balcony to get outside and listen to the birds. They seem happier.
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I’m always glad to hear from you Pam, and thrilled to know you are well. Your wit and insight are valuable to me and so many other people.
Continue doing what you do!
Here’s to happy birds!
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You are quite right (and not too harsh, in my opinion) in your feeling that “many people have ‘busied’ themselves for years with non-essential travel, expenditures and living a lifestyle which is BUSY, *but* without substance.” It’s interesting that you use the word “busy” a few times because (at least) here in the U.S., people have used that word to signal their importance in recent decades. I felt myself doing it, too, a number of years ago when my kids were younger and I was working and volunteering and over-extending myself. It made me sound and feel like I was not “wasting” time – heaven forbid! 🙂
Now, I get annoyed when people crow about their busyness, and I am very careful to avoid overusing that word or even letting myself get to the point where I feel too overwhelmed to simply enjoy each day. I know that to others, I still DO look busy, but being active and having many projects going at once is not stressful to me; it is enjoyable. It’s when I start to use busyness as an excuse to avoid human interaction or kindness, or to make other excuses, that I realize that much of what I am doing is without substance, as you note.
I know that this era will change me and my priorities; it already has. I really hope it helps others to reflect as well, and not to jump right back into the destructive or simply not-helpful things to which we have all been so attached.
Stay safe and healthy in your beautiful home and garden!
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