Do this tomorrow & notice the difference

From Emma:

“I had a maiden hair fern that all but died in the laundry, some time in the first few months of living in my new house. When I realised it was on the way out, it had just one tiny hint of a green stalk left.

There was something so vulnerable and sad about this. Even though I have never really had much success with indoor plants (or outdoor ones, for that matter) I started to nurture this one.

I moved it into the bathroom instead and every morning and night, I pick it up off the window ledge and take a close look at it. Over a few weeks, signs of life re-emerged. Tiny green stalks started growing out of the brown clump of dead stuff in the middle. It had found the will to live.”

This post could go in several directions now. We could talk about finding strength during adversity. We could talk about never giving up hope. Or we could talk about simplicity and the power of a pause at each end of the day.

We call this ‘bookending’. It’s about finding little anchor points at the beginning and end of the day that can help to centre you. In this case, it is a few moments, focusing on something tiny and silent, wondering at the resilience of life and measuring slow progress. It could be any early morning walk and half an hour of reading in bed before lights off, or a cup of coffee or tea on the verandah before anyone in the house is up and some moments outside, staring at the stars at night.

Whether it's first thing in the morning or the last thing at night, any rituals we create can bring us a comforting sense of certainty in a world that feels very off-kilter at times. We can have our own, and we can also create rituals in our families, bookending each day, or celebrating each weekend. We’re both open about the fact that one way we relax is watching trashy TV, but we try to avoid making that our ‘ritual’. It’s about adding in some little thing that reminds us regularly that the world keeps turning, no matter what else we have on our plates, and that we can create peaceful moments no matter how hectic everything else becomes.

Staying accountable for the little things that bring us joy or lift us up is a matter of choice, and it's so worth it.

We’d love to hear from you about what works for you, so we can inspire each other.

Audrey & Emma x