100 days of hope — 2. Nature waving
1 minute after bumping into a (reasonably new) friend who had just told me he wanted to move out of his house in an effort to get closer to nature, a huge crash hit the side of the train carriage we were riding in. Everyone in the carriage jumped, and it took us a few seconds to realise it had been a massive wave rattling into the windows of the train. That’s part of the beauty of the ride home from Exeter to Totnes, for a little while it skirts beside the shoreline and gives frequent reasons to look up from however I’m distracting myself.
It felt like nature itself, letting us know it was listening to our conversation, and when the conductor came over the speaker to say that the train had to stop to sort a malfunction that the salty slap from the sea had caused, it felt like nature was inviting us to sink deeper into our conversation.
After chatting for some time Freddie gave me his take on hope, which part of me wishes I could have bottled up and shared here. I remember that he mentioned how we have some choice over how we feed the future, if we feed it with worry it will encourage a certain future, if we feed it with bliss, playfulness and imagination it will turn out another way.
My source of hope for the day was from the nourishment of a free, playful and excitable discussion about nature which included an offer from Freddie to go foraging together in the weeks to come, as Winter turns to Spring. He suggested it’s best to learn what’s poisonous, avoid those things, and then try a nibble of everything else. I think he was joking.
