by Mirjam | May 4, 2015 | Life, Life Lesson, Nature, Netherlands
In my part of the world there are seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each of the seasons carries drastic weather and environmental changes. The changing of the seasons has a huge impact on our daily lives. We dress in different clothes, eat different foods, change the way we spend our days and feel different. Festivities and activities are tied to the distinct seasons, and they hold special meanings.
When I think about winter I think about skating, hot chocolate, Christmas and snow. In a less obvious way, Winter makes me think of family and cozyness. The feeling of tucking my child in at night when it’s dark and cold outside, is completely different from taking my child to bed in the summer.
We plant bulbs in Fall and wait for them to bloom in Spring, We collect colorful leaves and harvest apples in the Fall. We visit the beach and turn on the barbecue when it’s summertime. We dress in multiple layers of warm clothing when it’s Winter. Life continues within the cycle of these seasons.
I have always liked the seasons.
It’s like an ongoing song or poem that keeps changing and repeating my favorite lines, repeating verse after verse with similarities that are never exactly the same.
The seasons are my mantra for life. Reminding me to expect change, to laugh a little louder and enjoy the sunshine more fully, because hardship will come. But adversity will pass, and eventually little seedlings will stick their heads through the dirt and start to make their way to the sun. There will always be renewal, growth and hope.
Right now it is Spring here. Spring is my favorite season. It’s a season of increase, growth, warmth, hope and promise. It’s a joyous season. It will be followed by a season of abundance. With lots of light, warmth and the harvesting of the fruits of our labour. After summer there will be decrease and splendor at the same time. An outburst of color and creativity will accompany the transition to a season of absence, lack, stilness and patience. At the end of this cold withered season Spring will start again.
It’s the perfect metaphor for life.
Seasons change… and then they pass.
Seasons change… and then they pass.
What is your favourite season? What season is it right now in your part of the world?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Mirjam of the Netherlands.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | May 1, 2015 | 2015, Awareness, Brazil, Caring, Environment, Family, Home, Moving, World Motherhood
This is the Part 2 of a two part post. The first part is available here.
We are thinking about moving. Yesterday we visited two very nice houses at great prices and relatively close to where we live. I loved the first house in the sense that it has a practical, easy to clean design and would be great for the kids. However, there isn’t a single tree in the property! Also, it is completely exposed to neighbors and people in the street, which is something I do not like at all. The second house has lots of lovely trees, yet had an unpractical format that is not too child friendly. Among other things, it includes a high mezzanine that would be quite hard to keep the kids away from.
Basically, I would like to have the first house in the second house’s lot, which would be by the forest we live next to now!
Nevertheless, even though neither is perfect, either one of them would give us the chance to move and have a more organized, cozier home without undergoing the stress of home improvement projects. Plus, one of the advantages of moving – although it can also be a stress factor – is having a chance of reorganizing all of the stuff one has accumulated along the years and donating a bunch of items that are no longer necessary. Some even say that there are huge psychological benefits, as going through all that accumulated stuff can even stimulate the re-evaluation of an entire life and life style.
I believe the single greatest reason for staying, both for my husband and I, is the forest. I also like to think that living the way we do – with such close contact to the forest and all of its fauna and flora – will give our children a different perspective in life.
In his excellent book, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Chinese geographer Yi-Fu Tuan discusses how one’s home and its architecture influences the perceptions of and relationship with the environment, comparing the case of China and the USA.
Another thing that bothers me is that the new owners of our house might not “take care” of the forest as we do. Of course we only “look after” a tiny piece of the forest right behind our house, but some of the animals have almost become part of the family. For example, there is a sloth that our daughter has named Melissa…but also the tiny squirrel that makes its chirping sounds early every morning, the tegus that live in a hole in our backyard, plus the humming birds, chameleons, possums, agoutis, and so many others!
The sad truth is that surprisingly, many of our neighbors don’t care much about the forest. We often ask ourselves why they live here. They place high walls between the forest and their properties. Sometimes they illegally cut down the closest trees out of fear that they may topple over their houses (even though rarely a professional is summoned to check if there is truth in that fear), or they clear the bushes and smaller trees because they believe it will ward away snakes. More than once we have patiently talked to people about these issues only to be repelled off angrily in a menacing tone.
On the other hand, I also worry about the possibility of an unhealthy attachment to the house itself on my part. I don’t think it is healthy to be overly attached to any object. I recently saw how difficult it was for my mother to move out of her huge and decaying house, even though she was living completely alone, widowed for the second time (and now the difficulty to sell or do something about it). Similarly, my mother-in-law lives alone with her eldest son in an old eight bedroom house which almost everyone in the family is extremely resistant to sell due to their childhood memories and attachments.
Thus the question remains. Should we remodel our house and make the best of it? Should we take the “simple” path and just move? What have your experiences been with house remodeling and moving? Please share below!
This is part two of an original post to World Moms Blog by Ecoziva in Brazil.
Photo credit to the author.
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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In my part of the world there are seasons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each of the seasons carries drastic weather and environmental changes. The changing of the seasons has a huge impact on our daily lives. We dress in different clothes, eat different foods, change the way we spend our days and feel different. Festivities and activities are tied to the distinct seasons, and they hold special meanings.
