Monthly Musing – March 2020 – Balancing act
Trying to keep a sense of normality … here’s this month’s Monthly Musing. If you’re new to my blog and you’ve not seen these before, it’s a one-off post every month about something that has caught my attention and fits with the Winwick Mum theme of “looking for the extraordinary in the everyday”.
It’s Monday morning, and we’re about to get up.
“Do you hear that?” my husband asks.
“No …” I’m listening hard but I can only hear the birds.
“Exactly,” he says.
We live quite close to a main road, close enough to hear the traffic faintly (and not so faintly sometimes), but there is no sound. That’s usually a sign that the traffic is backed up for miles, held up by strategically placed traffic lights and a difficult right hand turn, so I look out of the window to check. There is no traffic. Looking up into the bright blue sky, there are no aeroplane vapour trails either.
It’s a bit like Christmas, but the sun is shining and small daughter isn’t blasting “Last Christmas” around the house – and even at Christmas there is plenty of traffic and aeroplane trails in the sky. It really is as if the world has stopped for everyone to get off for a while.
My husband made me laugh when he showed me something he had seen on Twitter: “This is what it feels like when the Earth sends you to your room to think about what you’ve done,” but all joking aside, the big winner in our current situation does seem to be the Earth. China’s smoggy skies have cleared and we’ve noticed that our own weather has improved too – the wild winds that rattled our doors and the horizontal rain that we’ve experienced lately has all gone, replaced instead by gentle Spring sunshine and soft breezes. I imagine that socially distanced scientists all around the world are checking their equipment incredulously and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out later in the year that our enforced time at home has done more good than all the recycling we’ve ever done.
Does this prove that our Universe knows what we need better than we do? Well, I don’t want to get into that conversation as it could last even longer than the time we’re going to be spending at home, but it does make you wonder, if that sort of thing floats your boat. What is quite incredible to me, though, is how quickly the Earth and Nature seems to recover. Sitting in the sunshine in the garden over the last couple of days, I’ve noticed more birds, more butterflies, more bees than I think I’ve ever seen at this time of year. There’s space for us all in the world, but I think that the balance has been significantly skewed towards humans for such a long time that it’s quite a shock for us to realise just how skewed it all has become.
It would be lovely if, once all this is over, we are able to adjust our living to be more balanced – more balanced generally and not just with Nature. Life’s not particularly easy at the moment and people are struggling in all kinds of ways, but to look for something positive in this, we’ve got an opportunity to catch up with ourselves and yes, to start something new that we never had time for before if that’s what we want to do. Our lives going forward will be different in so many ways but the nature of “balance” is that for all the bad, there has to be good as well. Perhaps, in the end, being sent to our rooms by the Earth will turn out to be just what we needed, and we will all – humans, Nature and the Earth – be healthier for it.
I love that quote about being sent to your room! Many years ago, when we studied Wordsworth at school, we read the poem "Hart Leap Well" and the line "But Nature, in due course of time, once more Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom." stuck in my mind. I hope Nature can heal itself, and species that were in decline begin to flourish. xx
Some days I love the eerie silence, looking out at no one, taking my walk through empty streets, other days it just seems so very odd. Let's hope we all come out of this better people who think more of the consequences of our actions.
While its odd to look out of our 3rd floor windows and see no one in the streets, I too love the silence, no cars, no planes, no people. I did my weekly shop yesterday and walked home through empty streets and shuttered windows which I did find a bit unnerving. We are learning a hard lesson but I hope we do learn it well and never forget this time.
We live in a really quiet street and I enjoy being woken up by the birds. Mind you, they like to get up earlier than I do… It is lovely that you can enjoy birdsong without the hum of traffic! I am learning to recognise the different voices, it is quite difficult apart from the very recognisable blackbird male song. The pollution has gone right down over Europe, too, I saw a pollution map just yesterday. If only I could remember where, I'd share it with you. Have a good week x
We live near heathrow and not far from several main roads and the M25 and its so quiet we cant sleep amazing what you get used to. And amazingly my inhalers are hardly in use at all. Lively blog it does make you think about what we are doing to the world
I wish we had lost the East/ North East wind like you, then I could get out in my back garden. It's a lovely sunny day but the wind is biting.
We live between the M25 and the A3 and under a Heathrow flight path even though we are semi rural – and the noise is normallly a backdrop to everything – I am appreciating the silence enormously and haven't had the words to put it as well as you just have! I too hope that we won't rush back to "normal" too quickly! The pollution levels are dropping everywhere and my asthma is responding beautifully! Thank you for a lovely musing!! Keep well and keep safe!!
Sadly I fear that when this is over humans will return to being selfish and demanding as ever, maybe even more so 😪
I said pretty much the same thing a couple of weeks ago when I noticed the birds were building their nests, trees and other plants were showing signs of bursting into leaf/flower. My apple tree, who obviously loved all the rain we had last year, is about to burst forth. I just hope we don't get any frost to kill the blossom. Last year we had three weeks rain, followed by one week of sunshine through June, July and August. Kept the hay fever down too! 🙂
Inspiring as always. It does make you take stock. I knew I had a stash of sock yarn for a reason. I’m so glad I found you. Xx
Lovely post Christine echoing some of the thoughts I have had myself over this past week. I am holding onto the hope that we will do things differently after this period of stillness, as we come to realise what a wonderful place our planet is when we are thoughtful and mindful of our actions.
Hi Christine Thank you for putting that into words so well. With my children both on islands – Isle of Man and Jersey – and no flights in or out, I am free of any grandmotherly duties. I'm treating it a a way to catch up on sleep and generally take life more slowly. I am onto my third pair of sock so far. Every cloud….