Dear Glowie,
I think it is most often possible to make a beautiful life wherever you are. My daughter and her family, (the ones who were here for my birthday,) live in an upper floor of a tall apartment building in the big city. It is very close to the notorious "East Vancouver", so it is more affordable. They are fortunate to have two balconies, one is south and the other north. The apartment isn't large for two such big men as the grandsons are, and a teen-aged girl plus her parents. The two grandson's share a small bedroom. Now, I know for many people in China this would be riches. For them it was a big change from a succession of rental houses here where we live. They had to move for the sake of the father's employment. We also have had to live in much more difficult places than where we are now.
Our two grand-sons have made gardens on their balconies, where they have a large variety of vegetables and flowers in pots and planters. They try out some unusual varieties, too. They are studying how to recycle their kitchen waste into compost for their gardens, and have decided on a project that is very natural. They have also developed a "pirate garden" on some un-used land. They saw an old Chinese man climbing a hill pushed up by a bull-dozer on some rough and currently unused land. They discovered he had made himself a garden there, so they decided to imitate him and have a garden, too. It has vegetables for the family's table. They read everything they can about gardening that is good for the land, and their interest has become so great that I think they could make it part of their life's work. Both are learning languages, German from their mother, French kept up from school when they were enrolled in "French Immersion" programs and one is continuing his Japanese, and often cooks Japanese food. He has visited Japan through his school and has made some friends there. His Japanese girlfriend has returned to Japan for the summer and will come back. They seem to be well matched, from what I hear, but who knows how it will all turn out?
Our daughter is always using her hands to create something. Her husband bettered himself three times while married with children, by independent study. He finally studied accounting through a far northern university, by mail, and taught himself computer skills and he has a job in I.T. All is not bliss though, as a couple of years ago he had a heart attach and had bypass surgery for a kinked artery. That's when he abruptly stopped smoking. He sent his sons home to find his cigarettes in his desk drawer and asked them to throw them away, and he hasn't smoked since. He came from a smoking family, but none of his three children or his wife smoke. He looks much healthier and more athletic and now has a really good build. He used to be a very skinny fellow and its a great improvement.
They are always making their own lives as full, loving and creative as they can manage, and they are very loving to each other and demonstrate it by brief caresses and hugs by one to the other. They also make jokes and smart remarks. They aren't "stuffy" types. Our granddaughter was able to get into a Montessori high school after she hated the previous school, and took home schooling for one year. She loves the new school and excels now. She is just five feet tall with a square build and she used to take a lot of teasing in her previous school. She has had a series of strong interests in nature and volunteered very successfully at the Vancouver Aquarium for a couple of years, working with school-children.
Our daughter is an artist and craftswoman and has a job in a store that sells fine crafts. When she comes home tired from work one of the others has always made a tasty and creative dinner. All of them cook, and cook well and creatively, and because they like to. Our grandchildren expect to create family lives like this (in their own styles), when they have families, because they are experiencing it as they grow up. Ben and I had good family homes, but we have worked to do even better ourselves, and now we see the fruits of our efforts in the lives of all our children and now in the grandchildren.
I well remember a person who wrote here about the beautiful large bamboo plant he had in his room; how he loved it, and liked to sit beside it, and see the light coming through it. Another wrote about the candles she puts around her when she takes a bath and how relaxing it is. Others have written about people they love and respect. What you see in our family is the product of many years of trying and trying to build it. As many of you are very young, you have a lot of years to think about your values and build into your lives the things that will make them beautiful, according to your desires and circumstances. In our family we like independent jobs with no boss, whenever possible. We like warm and close family. We try to take care of nature, we are interested in making art and craft things and not just looking, we all like writing and computers, and are vastly interested in books and good conversation among ourselves.
In your famiies you have collections of things you are interested in and can build your beautiful lives from. I know that Dove is doing it. Dave36 China is doing it. Panpanpan is doing it. The mother who writes here to her little son is doing it. Probably most of you are doing something about it, and if you think well and intensify the most important things, they will be cumulative, and one day you will look back and be astonished at what you have managed to create for a life for yourself and your loved ones. Be careful to keep the desire for money and material things in proper perspective. Not over-emphasized. And try for contentment. Try for a middle way. Anything taken to extreme turns from being a positive thing to become a negative thing.
In the west there is such a thing as "Guerilla Gardening." It means there are people who scatter seeds in many little unexpected waste places as they can. These are usually flower or tree seeds. Sometimes they are small trees. Once there was a train conductor who used to toss hollyhock seeds along the tracks he travelled for so many years, and finally there were many multi-coloured hollyhocks growing on that waste ground to cheer his heart and those of people who saw them from the train.
Let's all consider how to build ourselves beautiful lives within our own interests and circumstances, and then our own lives, our family's lives, our descendants lives, and the whole world will be a little better for our having done so.
Warm greetings to you, dear Glowie. Thanks for your reply. I am saving your new series until I can sit down and enjoy reading five or six of the chapters all at the same time. :-)))
Mary
