The last couple of days, my face has been in pain especially around my eyes. Spring is a beautiful season, but in the countryside I suffer with hay fever. Although it’s not fatal, it is really annoying and at the moment the whole of France is on red alert. I would like to walk outside one day, lay in the sun and on the grass, smell the air and the flowers… without having to worry about my face become inflamed and struggling to breathe.. The last two days have been especially bad, I’ve needed to lay down with a cold towel on my eyes.
It made me remember that I actually haven’t experienced spring in two years. I had been travelling between Europe and Australia so much that I was experiencing autumn on repeat for a while. No wonder my body was very confused, and didn’t remember how full the spring air is of little things floating around. Insects, pollen, fur and who knows what else. It feels like an attack on the senses and not in a good way.
Instead, I sit by the window now and look out at the colours of the valley from far away. It makes me want to live in one place even more so now, to experience the changes of the seasons and also change with it. In a world that seems to desire freedom of movement, I really want to exercise my freedom to be still. To be in the same place for 12 months. To watch the green leaves turn orange, fall away and expose the bare branches… then again to watch the water from the sky give everything a new lease on life.The seasons can be the simplest but yet strongest teacher for us. If we look around, and see how nature changes then maybe it can give us some clues about the importance of balancing rest, ambition, letting go and showing off. Life is made up of all these things.
I am tired of jumping from one place to another, depending on what I want at any particular time. I do not want to be the sole person who decides what’s going to happen for me in life anymore. It seems as if having this liberty has made me appreciate that life is more fun as something I can create in collaboration with other people. Similar to a rose bush planted in the earth. The seed does not decide upon how much water it gets, or the nutrition that will be in the soil. It does its best with what it’s been given, and it uses this to create its leaves and eventually its budding flowers. It does not decide how much sun it will be given that day, it simply receives as much as it can and enjoys the warmth while it’s there.
When we don’t have control over certain things, I think that renders us afraid. Our bodies react physically as well as mentally. And after living a life that has been so within my control, I’ve made myself tired. The only thing I’m missing is true rest… but in order to do that I think we need to be like the roses and trust in what is around us at this very moment to be our nourishment. To reach for more, simply for the pleasure of stretching ourselves and not so far that we break. Little by little, I’ll move from the safety of looking behind the glass, to walking on the grass, without fear of what’s around me.
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