Feeling gratitude

As if this time of pause and reflection was not a blessing in itself, the universe bestows upon us too this most incredible weather! I’m just grateful that here on Guernsey we are permitted two hours of exercise per day, and us Es have certainly been making the most of this. We’ve enjoyed every moment of our time in the great outdoors both within the garden and beyond. Spring is most definitely sprung and the land herself is a blessing. The colours of the flowers!

I haven’t used the car for a good old while now, favouring the bike, and we’ve been heading out to the cliffs and to Petit Port mainly, down those 300 odd steps. The tide has been super low so we fulfilled a dream of walking/swimming between Petit Port and Moulin Huet, which was great. We’ve enjoyed running on the beach and swimming in the sea and I’m only grateful for the electric bike on the way back home, after traipsing up those steps!

We’ve managed swims at Saints and Fermain too, early morning, when the tide has been at its highest after that full moon, it was a 10.2m on Thursday, which was super high and ever so peaceful. There’s nothing better than having the beach to ourselves for a quick run around and then back home again, refreshed, ready to ‘stay home’ until we need a run around (or run off) again.

Staying at home hasn’t been particularly challenging though, we’re lucky to have a garden and I was excited to establish our raised bed so that we could plant on the waxing moon, literally hours before the full moon peaked. So far so good, with this sun the plants have been growing well. Even some of my medicinal plants have started sprouting, and I’ve had to re-pot the marigolds already. 

 I’ve said it before but as Mother Earth is allowed to re-wild herself, so too we have been re-wilding, not that we even realised we needed to. Eben removes his clothes at every available opportunity, he even pooed in the garden today, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I suppose it is really. Goodness knows how we might try and tame him for pre-school, although I think it might be a while until the children return to school, but who knows.

If there’s one thing we are continuously reminded, it is that all life is uncertain. I’m reading a book called The House of Glass by Hadley Freeman about her Jewish grandmother and her grandmother’s siblings, and their life as Polish Jewish immigrants in the 1930s and 1940s in Paris, France. If ever there were people who had to live with uncertainty then these were European Jews in the 1940s, never sure when their life might be taken away from them, just for being born Jewish. But don’t get me started on that.

People are constantly persecuted aren’t they, for being born a certain way, or in a certain place. Just as people are always dying, regardless of Covid-19. I wonder if sometimes the media might have forgotten that. Children continue to starve to death on a daily basis. Refugees also die because no one cares and no one will accept them into their countries for fear of…presumably the same fear that found the Jewish people being refused entry into other countries all those years ago too. Who knows. I’m no expert. 

I do know that it saddens me that no one cares, as if we do not have the capacity in our hearts to care for so many. One of my swimming friend’s made it quite clear to me that really no one does care at the moment about all the other suffering, about children starving and refugees dying from neglect, because Covid-19 has taken centre stage. This made me sad too. That lives are not equal. There is still so much inequality, still ethnic cleansing, and so much harm done. It’s out of sight and out of mind and I am only sorry to those charities trying to help, but now not receiving so much funding.

It was a defining moment for me though, being told this, as if some lives are worth more than others. We’ve certainly been there before, history is full of such stories. We’re just lucky some of us to have been born in Guernsey, where we don’t have to worry about our safety beyond the current Covid-19 risk. I suppose this is the reason it grips us. It’s the closest we’ve gotten to having everything taken away from us, not least our freedom but our life and the lives of our loved ones. I do understand the fear and panic this has created. 

However that doesn’t excuse the blame culture, and the tale telling that we have seen, with  some sending photos and videos of people on the beaches to senior politicians, who thankfully had the sense to say that they couldn’t understand the problem. It’s about being responsible isn’t it. Taking responsibility. Doing what is asked of us and leaving the authorities to manage it. I appreciate that underlying the tale telling is fear, and I feel huge compassion for those who are suffering with this, the fear that is, and the sense of being out of control, and worried for their lives, and therefore needing to blame everyone else.

But really, better to just enjoy what we can of this time, to shift the perspective, find the positives and focus on those. Life is always uncertain. It always has been and it always will be, we need to just settle into that, because we never truly know what tomorrow might bring. Thus me being sad serves no one. It certainly doesn’t serve my family. Me worrying absolutely isn’t going to help anyone either, it’s just going to waste my energy. This is the time to step into the uncomfortableness of the unknown and live in the moment. 

Getting on with things and having fun where I can, doesn’t mean I don’t still feel compassion though, for those directly affected by Covid-19, who are losing loved ones and in the most traumatic circumstances. I am also sorry for the many other millions currently suffering, not only because Covid-19 has locked down the world making their lives increasingly difficult – Refuge reported a 25% increase in calls from those suffering domestic abuse last week in the UK, for example. 

 I’m forever hopeful that this disease will make us more compassionate, collectively. That the world will come together, not separate. That we might care for all beings, regardless of where they were born and when. That we might still learn to find the joy in the uncertainty, that we give each other a break and acknowledge that we’re all doing our best. Perhaps it is bold of me to ask this, but if there is a time to seek new beginnings, then it is now, in our own lives, that might feed into the collective.

 This is what spurs me on at this time. To live life to the full within the guidelines given to us by those who know best at this time. No one really knows how this will unfold. But what we do know is that we have a choice in how we experience this time. Whether we focus only on the negatives and the potential for dying, or whether we embrace the positives and get on with living. 

I’ve become increasingly thankful for my life and for all it brings with it, that I get to enjoy this weather and this island and my beautiful wild family, there is much for me to be grateful about and I am grateful, truly. I’m especially grateful that my children get to be wild, because I have never seen them happier. The wild suits them, it reflects their inner spirit, they are uninhibited and innocent; this too is a gift. 

I know others are grateful too. Covid-19 might be dividing but it is also providing people with an opportunity to consider their lives, the before-Covid-19 and how they might like it to be following Covid-19. Some will no doubt be keen to get back to ‘normal’, while others will be happy to settle into a new normal, with some lessons learned from this pause. That too will be fascinating to observe, whether we soon forget or manage to maintain our gratitude.