A Post a Day in May #17: Making do. Seeing new

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I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May. 

We are not at the cottage on Lake Winnipeg for this iconically Canadian May Long Weekend. For a variety of reasons, we have stayed in the city. 

If the COVID-19 lockdown has taught me anything, it is that making do, keeping the horizon closer and smaller, is not so bad — if I can just keep my mind in check.  

Rather than striding down the road for what is, I think, around that next corner, I am getting better at seeing what is right in front of me, of focusing on the immediate. It’s a constant trade-off between expansion and contraction, but it’s doable. I just have to be willing to see…
  • Beauty in the little green shoots of new growth coming up in the front garden 
  • Joy in the kids riding their bikes down the street 
  • Contentment in managing with less
For those of us with greater experience of more and bigger — and I count myself among this number — our current experience of less freedom and smaller scope  throws a light on our privilege, our embarrassment of normal riches: a house, a cottage, a car, a job, health, friends, community, and so on. 

That I am in one place and not the other this May Long Weekend is too bad, but that little green shoot in the front bed? I’m going to water it and see the beauty in its sprouting leaves.  
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Comments

  1. danielle-momoMay 17, 2020 at 8:38 AM

    I like your two pictures. It is a blessing to be able to appreciate what is around us.
    Watching nature is so soothing at anytime but more so now. In my everyday walk, I focus on the first buds and the soft green of the first leaves on some trees.
    I have the privilege to love my surroundings and live a simple life but I have to remind me of that sometimes.

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