Apartment living is crushing my soul.
I feel as though I have lost my connection to life. Time and seasons pass but nothing changes. It’s the same four walls. The difference only whether there is snow or leaves on the trees I can see through the balcony door.
I long for a garden. To smell and feel the earth between my fingers. To watch for signs of life in the spring. To watch the bees too laden with pollen to fly on drowsy summer afternoons.
I long to plant bulbs in the fall. The anticipation of seeing their colourful nodding heads carrying me through the short snowy days of winter. I even miss shovelling that snow.
I miss my bird feeders. The birdsong a constant joyful refrain through all the days of the year. Watching them with their babies, searching for bugs in the garden or huddling in the bushes on a snowy winters day darting out now and again for seed. Their constant unyielding perseverance through storms and against obstacles an inspiration.
I miss having a kiddie pool to splash around in. Even though my kids have long outgrown one, no one is too old for a splash on a muggy summer’s day.
I miss my laundry line. Watching the laundry billowing in the breeze or hanging on for dear life on a blustery late fall day. The fresh glorious smell of outdoors and sunshine that lingers on the clothes.
I miss having BBQ’s the smell of the flames gently searing the meat or grilling the veggies.
Instead I wander through life as though it is a library. Borrowing the smell of someone else’s BBQ, the sight of their laundry billowing on the line. Borrowing the sights and smells of their gardens.
I find myself becoming bitter and jealous in my little cocoon world.
I long to have a patch of earth to tend again. To wander in late winter and early spring to see which plants have dared to poke their heads out despite the raging weather. To feel freshly mown grass between my toes. To watch the progression of life through the garden seasons.
Like a newly emerged butterfly I want to sit out on my patch of earth and feel the sun’s warmth spreading over me.
The internet has been fantastically effective in allowing people to communicate. While post and phones and radios did allow communication across distances, they were not as easy and accessible as such things as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr etc. are.
It is a lonely business to be on social networks and imagine you have friends only to find you were fooling yourself. Rather like Charlie Brown thinking this will be the time he kicks that ball only to have Lucy pull it away again at the last moment.
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