Sometimes, We Must Clean Houses and Minds

Today marks a milestone—six years ago today, I posted the first Bits & Pieces (formerly, Inspiring Your Best). COVID gripped the world, and we locked our doors and shuttered the windows as uncertainty circled the globe.

I grew so weary of the constant grim news, which hasn’t let up much, and I longed for more joyful and hopeful messages. So I wrote my own and sent it to fewer than ten brave souls who trusted me with their email.

Every Saturday,  since 2020, I share insights, photographs, and words of wisdom with a song added to the mix. Following is an excerpt from that first post with a couple of favorite photos.

It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May.” Or, as I see it, the dusty month of May and time for our annual cleaning. Every spring, we make a detailed list of repairs and deep cleaning chores. Delightful activities like washing windows, cleaning mold from outside walls, oiling kitchen cabinets, and super-cleaning every room.

This usually coincides with a family gathering we host Memorial Day Weekend (US). Except for this year [2020], there will be no party.

We can’t let down our guard. The unknowns of Covid-19 force us to protect our family, many with underlying conditions susceptible to the virus.

We cleaned anyway because, well, it’s May. Life doesn’t stop, but I must still clean the cobwebs in our home and in my mind.

I started thinking about how we renew ourselves. How do we clean out our mental cobwebs?

Inspiration to share . . .

Sometimes, we all need a little silence to calm the soul and time in the garden.

I’ve been reading Mary Pipher‘s book, Writing to Change the World. She writes about the transformative power of music and poetry. Hundreds of songs began swirling in my head, but one spoke loudly for our current times, “Let It Be.”

Speaking of music and gardens, Maria Popova (Brainpickings) wrote about the healing power of gardens and shared insights from neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. His experience has taught him this truth:

In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.” Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales,

Words to Inspire . . .

” We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe