Yesterday morning, I woke up slowly.
I got ready for the day, and then found I had to wait while I backed up my photos and videos. While waiting, I looked out the window to the street below. A neighbour was outside, tending to her garden. She was pruning the branches, and then cutting the branches into smaller segments – making it easier to dispose of. I remember while in Australia, I would watch Mum do this very thing in her garden.
I laughed to myself. Here, on a completely different side of the world, a lady was doing something that my Mum does almost every day too. Although it’s a little different here. Since there are so many people, and therefore so many apartment buildings, the gardens are often rows of pot plants.
Terracotta, foam, plastic… each little pot contains something which is thriving and attracting birds. I am often amazed by the beautiful sound of birds in the mornings here. It feels out of place, given how much concrete I am surrounded by.
It’s part of the contrast I love about this part of Taipei – lushly leaved branches reaching into the sky, framed by concrete and bricks, grounded by tar. People here don’t have the space that I was so used to in Australia, but they have their routines and they make things work for them.
Routines. It reminded me that the last few days I wasn’t really following one. It is often difficult to maintain a routine while travelling. Partly because it involves living in a changing environment… and not just change in weather, but also change in culture, language and infrastructure. It is the ultimate test of adaptability, to remain grounded while experiencing so much change.
After 8 years, I am still learning a lot. But I am getting better at doing some things regularly. It helps me to touch “home base” so to speak. At the very least, in the morning I try to get up and make some time to breathe. With so much transition going on, it is quite normal to regularly feel uncomfortable, and sometimes even unsafe (even when there is no objective reason to feel that way).
This can be testing for your mental health after a while, but it can also be a wonderful opportunity gain inner strength. No matter what changes in our life, we always remain the same at our core… and during times with a lot of change, we can reach to that core for stability, safety and strength.
We might do this through a simple, repetitive activity… like tending to our garden. Just the action of trimming the branches into little segments, would be enough to calm any anxious heart. So each morning, I try to find a repetitive action: maybe it’s making coffee, maybe it’s walking, or maybe it’s simply sitting and noticing the repetition of my breath.
I know that I am not always going to have the answer to achieving certain things, like the perfect morning routine… but I always know that if I stop and look inside myself then this is a good enough place to start.
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