I notice more and more things. Recently saw a tiny new wildflower appear on our laissez-faire lawn. A new wild creeping thyme creeping in a new spot. A new pale blue butterfly I’ve never seen before. A new hedgehog ambling across the garden at the same time as the one I watched dragging bits of twig and dried leaves to a cosy place beneath the hedge.

It keeps you alive, it’s also a sign that you are alive and well. That you have spare capacity to enjoy moments and seconds.

‘Noticing keeps you alive. When we say, “I felt so alive!” doesn’t it mean we were observing the ordinary world around us as if it were new?  Isn’t that what a romance is?’ 

Source: Molly Peacock, The Paper Garden: Mrs Delany Begins her Life’s Work at 72 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012 (2010)), p. 101

Photo credit: Free-Photos at pixabay