How can we stop climate change & what will we tell our kids?

We recently celebrated Earth Day, but what did we achieve by posting cute 'Happy Earth Day' messages online? 

In 2019, the UN scientists* warned that we have 11 years left to prevent irreversible climate change damage. So now we only have 9 years and, as a parent, this terrifies me. 

Into the wild - before lockdown

We don't know what freedom is until it's taken away. 

This was our walk on Tuesday. We're usually avoid hiking because of crime and having a toddler, but we braved it because we wanted to keep physical distance from other people. On that little hike, I said, "After lockdown, we have to do this often, and invite friends so we can walk together." If it weren't for the loaming house arrest, we wouldn't have done this, we would have stuck to the safe and the known, the less wild.

But things are going to get wild. Without us around who knows how the plant and animal life in parks, forests and beaches will flourish.

And thanks to an extreme reduction in road traffic, we are going to benefit from massively reduced air pollution levels (please let someone be studying this). Mother nature is reclaiming herself. She's having a spa day for 21 days. She deserves it. We deserve it. It's the least we can do.

#gratitudeduringlockdown #lockdownsouthafrica #gratitudejournal

The small things are the big things

A few weeks ago, I woke up uncharacteristically early and decided to watch the sunrise. I throw clothes over pj's, took my coffee and walked down the road, greeting early morning runners on route. I must have been quite a sight with wild morning hair and coffee cup in hand.

The sunrise was worth it. 

I tried to be quiet because I was already freaking out about the coronavirus, but I couldn't really talk about it because I sounded like a hypochondriac. I am, but I've also been expecting this since I watched an Oprah show way back about how scientists predicted a virus will mutate enough to cause a pandemic. At the time, they thought it would be bird flu (it could still be). I also looked at how fast the numbers climbed in China and I just knew this was going to hard to contain.

I was grinding my teeth in my sleep freaked out. And then I watched the sunrise and felt like God was saying, stop to notice the big things. In that moment, the sunset was so big, the sky a show of colour changing every second. It was a performance. One I hardly ever attend, something sidelined as small. I thought of my child when he was born. He was tiny (2,4kg), but the first moment I saw him, roaring in his deep voice, he was the biggest thing in the room. Sometimes the smallest things are the biggest things.

Right now, something so small that we can't even see it is causing big changes in our lives. Its horribly scary but it's also a reminder that the small things could be the big things.

Job stress, workloads, deadlines, career success all loom like big things over us, taking up so much headspace, but in comparison to our family, health, creativity and the wonder of nature they are the small things.