Today I come to you from a wonderful place.
I got to visit last week with a friend.
A beautifully refurbished manor house
set amongst the picturesque, lush, green grounds.
As much as I love nature, I am also fascinated
by history and architecture,
beautiful old buildings and quaint little cottages
England is so abundant with.
Setting foot
on the grounds where people walked, lived,
dreamed about their future, just like I do today,
but many, many years in the past,
imagining their lives,
what they looked like, what they did
on this exact same spot I am standing at today.
Each step of the way there is history filled
with souls and hopes of those who came before us.
When I imagined the scope - the quiet, endless
flow of time in which I am but a speck,
a tiny memory once lived and someday to be forgotten -
it truly makes me appreciate
the moment I am experiencing right now.
A golden, crisp morning filled with thousands
voices of birds,
a breakfast outside in the quiet company of a friend
waiting for the rest of the world to wake up.
Perhaps 100 years in the future,
someone else will set their foot here
and have these similar thoughts
wondering who else had walked this path before them.
Winter was very long and very cold this year,
turning into rainy,
colder than usual spring,
which seems to have ended way too fast.
I had herbs and tomato seedlings growing on my windowsill,
sheltered from the unforgiving weather.
Warm, sunny days came at last
and so came the time to plant them all outside
At a blink of an eye
my bare garden and empty flower beds
turned into a jungle bursting with green, white
and pink so wildly and uncontrollably
that it seems like nowadays
I live in the garden most of the time.
I live in a rented house,
so there is only a limited amount of things
I can do and plant mostly in containers.
I found this beautiful pink flowering strawberry
at the garden center and decided to give it a go.
I also planted basil, lemon balm, rosemary
coriander, marigolds, lupines
nasturtiums, blueberries,
mini aubergines, peas and tomatoes,
which is a lot for a small space like mine.
And honestly,
I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time,
but I am so excited to see how it turns out.
Last year’s drought
and this year's extended
winter hurt many plants,
but I am hopeful and positive this far.
We finally had some summer days and after a week long warm
spell, a refreshing summer rain came at last.
I've spent many balmy evenings
outside in the early days of June,
walking endlessly until the Silver Crescent
moon appeared and the blue sky.
I finally feel lighter, better in my own skin and mind.
I never had much of a relationship with summer or sunsets,
preferring the eerie foggy mornings
framed with bright yellow leaves on the ground
and naked carcasses of trees standing tall above my head
in late October.
The darkness of an autumn day always felt more me -
poetic in its melancholy of withered life.
But suddenly I fell in love with summer
and with sunsets, with cotton candy colored evening sky.
A burst of yellow buttercups
chaotically swaying in the warm wind.
The touch of scorching sun rays
and a light linen dress on my skin.
I suddenly feel at ease,
letting go of expectations I always had about summer,
letting go of summer bucket lists
and thousands things to do before it ends.
The pressure that numbed me with its perfect,
too deterministic image of life.
Somehow I simply stopped trying
to fill my life with perfect moments,
but rather with many feelings.
The feelings of the moment - strong, bursting, vibrant,
like a hot summer sunset in the middle of June.
Thank you for spending your time with me today
and I hope you have a wonderful beginning of summer.
See you again next week.