Paring down to the essentials
Hey there friends,
Most mornings since this crazy-making started, I’ve taken a walk in the arboretum across the street from our house. It’s an hour of alone time to think, move, and observe. One of my favorite sounds this week was my sneakers schlooping in the mud alongside a swollen stream.
I’ve noticed buds on apple trees, branches on others reddening as they wake up from wintertime. Tiny blue flowers called early snow glories bloom in swaths across the fields. I watched a robin bathe in a shallow pool formed by the raised roots of a tree this morning. There’s been birdsong galore. This might be a tough time for humans, but it’s business as usual for the rest of the species on our shared planet. I find it reassuring.
While the the planet does its thing, carbon emissions are dropping, and humans are figuring out what’s essential - to our health, our work lives, our kids’ education; to our relationships, recreation, and consumption. We’re missing many of the essentials right now, but maybe when we’re together again, we’ll all have a better sense of what we really need in this world.
Is it productivity in service of endless economic growth? Hopefully not.
Because there’s an argument to be made for prosperity without growth.
And this corona moment might actually force us to see what that could look like.
I’m about to go drink socially distant wine in the sun with my neighbors. Getting to know the people in my neighborhood - definitely an essential. Sending love -
XO,
Leigh