Tomorrow is Father's Day - my first without my dear lovely dad. It's been a hard six months, getting over some of the 'firsts' and, in the early days especially, I took comfort from imagining him all around me. The first day back at work I drove in to a stunning sunrise, the robin in the garden who sat on the window sill singing on the morning of the funeral, and of course getting out and about for a walk. I'm not really given to stress and I don't show my emotions easily and, thankfully, I have never suffered from mental illness, but I never really thought of nature as being healing until a few years ago when I got an allotment. Sadly I don't have it now, but if I was feeling even a little bit het up I'd go there - digging, planting seeds or even just sitting in the shed and watching the plants grow made me feel better. Now I know that if I'm having a bad day, a bit irritable or just down, going for a walk round the meadow and woods nearby will almost certainly pull me out of the gloom and I am a big advocate for walking and nature being great for wellbeing.
We have an afternoon tea party tomorrow for our
grand-daughter's birthday so hopefully that will take the edge off the Father's Day melancholy. In the meantime here is a poem that was actually posted on my walking group's Facebook page a few weeks ago during the awful weeks of terrorist attacks but which also resonated with me personally. I saved it for
30 Days Wild not knowing if or when I might post it. Today it feels right.
No comments:
Post a Comment