Harvesting Lavender, counting my blessings & The Little Prince

I AM NOT A COMMON ROSE, YOU ARE NOT A COMMON ROSE, A WEED IS ONLY SUCH UNTIL YOU KNOW ITS NAME

So, the last few days have been better, naturally there have been blips….. hiding from neighbours behind the water butt kind of blips but I am getting there, slowly.

There have been a few events this week that have helped me find my feet and harness a little of whom I was before this darkness took a hold of me.

First there was the lavender. It’s my favourite colour. Phoebe and I have been watching it grow from a tiny cutting that we pinched on our way into town two summers ago. We have watched it grow and flower and pull in the bees with its charm and treasure. It grows around and over the pond, it is often full of snails and frogs and bugs, so full of life. In the spring you see the tell-tale signs of frog hoppers hiding within their foam around its leaves. No more than half a meter across the front, forming a triangular shape, so alive. It’s funny how sitting by that lavender gave me such an absolute moment of clarity, a moment I could actually touch and hold, not just a fluttering one that vanishes before I have a chance to even reach out. How wonderful to feel so alive again. For just a moment I was that lavender, I held so much life within my limbs and felt the nurturing of the Earth. Then a little voice that I had not heard approaching whispers eagerly “is it ready yet Mummy?” and I noticed that it was, I was. We harvested the spent flowers ready to make potent something new. We felt them crumble on our hands, still giving even after their time has gone. Our hands smelled beautiful and we smiled and ran our perfumed fingers through our hair. Everything smelt of lavender, it filled our nostrils and clouded the summer air and it was wonderful and I already know that every time I smell lavender I shall think of this moment. I put the little bag of dried flowers on my desk and I can smell them every time I sit to work and I have been working quite a lot. Burning makes me so happy, especially now I am not taking on commissions for some time. It means I do not have the stress of deadlines, the pressure of time, I can burn at my own will. The smell of the lavender circulating with the fan, the curves of leaves and branches on the Paper Panda design that I am burning, I am home.

*tries very hard to resist saying “Chewy, we’re home”*

Of course we have known for many years that lavender has wonderful properties. From masking the smell of the plague to helping people sleep and now it is healing me. Thank you, you wonderful purple gem you.

So, like many people, I have eagerly been awaiting Le Petit Prince animated film, it didn’t disappoint. Since reading the beautiful book I wanted to share the messages and beauty with my children. I was going to incorporate the book into a few home-ed lessons but when I spotted the film on Netflix I coaxed Phoebe into watching it with me. She didn’t seem keen but urged on by my enthusiasm and promise that it will give her one of the best lessons of her entire life she sat and within moments she was as enthralled as I hoped she would be. We watched in awe and majesty as the tale unfolded, we laughed and we cried and when ‘Fin’ appeared at the end we looked at one another and just beamed for a time before anybody spoke, I knew she got it, I knew she felt as I did. We sat and we talked, we discussed feelings and love and growing older but not growing up. Phoebe gave me so much insight into that wonderful brain of hers, glimpses at how deeply feeling she is, what a wonderful adult she will be. I sat and listened as she told me all the things about the film that I had wanted to tell her. She told me there are no common roses, everything grows in its own place so nothing can be common, everything and everyone is unique. She explained how we are all the Little Prince but sometimes we just forget. She told me how silly it was to ‘plan’ a life. We discussed schooling and our decision that traditional schooling was not for us and why. We talked about timetables and uniforms and the 9–5 and we discussed freedom. We talked about never losing ourselves in the chaos of the grown up world. We talked about how demanding adults can be but how they get annoyed when children are demanding, we talked about ‘rules’. We talked about how many adults forget what it was like to be a child and how they need to cut children a bit more slack! We talked about how we make allowances for adults behaviour when they are tired but tell children off for theirs when they are so. We talked about remembering who we are. We talked about how many years we, hopefully, have to be an adult and how short childhood is. We talked about not being asked what we want to be when ‘we grow up’ because right now she is enjoying being a child. When Phoebe is an adult she likely will choose a career, a path but right now she can be a mermaid on Monday, a turnip on Tuesday, a walrus on Wednesday, a thespian on Thursday, a fire-breathing dragon on Friday, a Simon on Saturday and just maybe on Sunday she’ll want to be Phoebe again. For now, she can be anything, for now she is free and as long as she remembers being a mermaid or a dragon she always will be no matter how many years she clocks up.

When all our words were spoken Phoebe hugged me and said “you are the best type of grown up, I want to be just like you, I promise I won’t forget” and then, in that moment, thanks to Phoebe and the Little Prince, I remembered a part of myself, one of the best parts, one of the parts I always liked and it bloomed. I watched her get up from the sofa and I was so filled with pride. “I can’t wait to read the book now Mummy”, she took it from the bookcase and squirrelled herself away in her room to savour every precious word, just as I had done some years before. Magic.

So, today is positive, it’s taking the ups and downs and finding the goodness that is all around you if you just take the time to look.

I am the Little Prince and so are you, don’t forget.