What a fabulous summer it has been, despite all the pandemic tribulations around the world.
Our local experience of Covid-19 may not have been as severe as elsewhere, but we too have experienced the lockdowns, deaths, quarantine, family separations, business closures, shortages of goods and services and the exhaustion of all our essential workers. On top of that we have been affected by another unthinkable war spreading grief abroad.
Naturally, we tend to focus our pessimism and criticism on the apparently random meanderings of our politicians or on the decision-making mistakes we attribute to industry and social service leaders. It’s so easy to be judgemental, but there is a strong possibility that our politicians and leaders are actually doing their best, without maps or instructions for navigating these uncharted waters. There is no doubt that these are truly difficult times as we face unique economic crises, a strange new sickness in our midst and devastating wars abroad. It has been a struggle sometimes to avoid ruminating about it all in a negative way.
My antidote to pessimistic overthinking is to visit the trees in any of our wonderful parks here in Tāmaki Makaurau. As a Ponsonby local, I have explored most of our green spaces, large and small, dotted around the neighbourhoods. They are full of trees that communicate with us soothingly by sharing their pheromones and other scent signals. You just have to loiter long enough under a tree to absorb the benefit or to imagine that you will. Stay a while - sit on the grass - lie back - watch the fragments of sky and slow moving clouds - close your eyes - relax your shoulders - wiggle your toes - listen to your own personal affirmations.
This is how I came to write a letter recently to someone with whom I wish I had shared my admiration and love more freely while he was alive. As I lay in the dappled light, eyes closed, inhaling the lingering smell of recently mown grass hanging low to the ground, I watched him in my mind’s eye mowing his own precious lawn with care all those years ago.
I can recommend the healing effect of absorbing tree pheromones while reflecting on the good things in our lives. You too might enjoy composing a letter in the dappled shade of a tree in your local park, with generosity of spirit.
Dearest - you have been my soul mate, my closest associate, my life-long friend and confidant and my best advisor every step of the way in our partnership as a couple and as a family. We have known each other for fifty years, since we first met in that tropical paradise, full of youthful curiosity about each other and about a world beyond the islands. You had massive confidence and charisma and your optimism spread like a carpet in front of us. You were a hero to me.
You have loved our children with a big heart and open mind. This was always clearly evident, even when we struggled with the mundane complications of raising a family and forging our separate careers. You have honoured our social commitment to raise our family with a strong sense of identity, with good purpose, moral ideals and decent social values.
You were a just and honest man of principle, not without faults, but you were brave and kind. You loved your family and gave yourself completely to the difficult role of making our home a safe and happy haven for us all; a place we could leave confidently and a place to which we could return, at any time, in any kind of condition.
Your wisdom and clear-sightedness kept us all resilient whenever any of us faced personal threats and also through the times when we struggled to maintain our collective stability as an extended family.
There is no one I would rather have stand beside me in times of crisis and in times of happiness. I love you still.
(ALEXA LAWRENCE)
Footnote: The correct term for these plant chemicals is phytoncides. Breathing in these antibacterial and antifungal chemicals is believed to have a beneficial effect on our health and mood.
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