It's finally here! After what seemed like an endless winter, both physically and symbolically, summer finally arrived on a warm, soft breeze under sunny skies last Monday, Memorial Day (at least in my neighborhood). It couldn't have come at a better time and with so much more meaning, especially this year.
It is only natural after a long winter and an iffy spring to get excited about a day that is known as the Official First Day Of Summer. Sometimes the real meaning behind Memorial Day is lost as so many folks look forward to the first cookout of the season and celebrating the outdoors (I know I did as it was my first official day outside since the surgery). This past year, which was especially hard on everyone, gave us even more reason to celebrate. And yet, the real meaning of Memorial Day was even more profound this year as well.
We celebrate Memorial Day to remember the brave souls who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend and protect our freedoms. The idea of freedom hit me hard this last 18 months. While I am all about freedom in general, I don't think my personal freedom was ever tested as much as it was during this time. Between two surgeries that kept me home bound, and then being encouraged to stay indoors once I had healed because of the pandemic, the idea of real freedom, the ability to walk out the door whenever I wanted and to go wherever I wanted, was front and center in my life. I can tell you for sure that I will never again take for granted the ability to run across the street for milk, or to go to the library, or to church, or even to treat myself to a lunch out. All those months I had to find solace somewhere to keep myself from going completely crazy. So where would this lover of all things Mother Nature find it? You guessed it ... in my tiny garden.
Plants don't moan and groan about personal freedom. They don't decide not to grow because they can't pick up and move to a better location or take themselves out for a stroll. They don't complain about having to depend on someone else to water and feed them, or to prune them, or to control their access to light and warmth. They just are. They do what plants do without complaint or comparing themselves to others. If ever there were perfect examples of living in the present moment, with mindfulness, it would be the plant world. Can you imagine a tree complaining about having to stand in one spot for years on end? Nope. Year after year it just does its thing: bloom, put on a show in autumn, lose all it's leaves, stand bare and cold in the winter, and bloom again in spring. It just is, and it does a magnificent job of it, don't you think?
So if there is any lesson I've learned from these last 18 months, it's not to take any of my freedoms for granted, even the little ones like going to the store for milk, but also to know that it's okay to remember to "just be," to take each moment as it comes and, like the plants and trees, to bloom where we are.
And so it is.
