WHY BOTHER....

A few weeks ago I was pottering around a nursery (surprise, surprise) when I heard two women talking. One was obviously a gardener, the other along for the ride. When the gardener was putting some plants in her trolley, her friend said 'Why are you bothering to do the garden? No one but you sees it. And what happens if you decide to move, someone will probably come in and tear it all down.'

I was shocked and frankly didn't hear the gardener's response. But the idea that you wouldn't do something that you obviously love, or even like doing, because no one else would see it left me speechless.

Unless we have a hobby that has turned into a source of income, we participate for the enjoyment. It's a passion or a joy. We get something out of it. To me a garden is a part of the gardener.

No one else will put things together exactly as I do.

It's a part of me. I want a rosemary hedge, so I've put in cuttings (that are doing great).

I thought it would be fun to have some faces on the trees in the area that Little Miss has decided is hers.

I've added some colourful wind toys and bunting....

Why not?

I have done nothing in the garden with the thought that it MUST BE SEEN BY EVERYONE. In fact our place is so hidden and secreted away, unless you know where we live, no one sees it except us. 

Ever.

The garden is a piece of me. It's a part of my creativity.

It's the same with writing. I can just imagine that friend saying 'Why bother writing if it's never going to get published and no one else will ever read it?' 

Yes a lot of us do want that to happen, for a piece to be published and read. But the majority of us write because we have to...we want to...we have a story to tell...something to say.

We write to understand, to test a theory. To be creative, to have fun, to create a world that we have some semblance of control over. We write to vent and scream at an unfair world, we write to describe what moves us, what makes us cry, what makes us angry. 

Imagine if we only created for others. 

 I know someone that creates the most beautiful mandalas on the beach. Wonderfully intrinsic designs made out of shells and stones, seaweed and anything else she finds. She creates them for herself, for the pure enjoyment they give. They are ethereal, there until the tide takes them away. But they are hers, beautiful in their creation, enjoyed until they are gone.

Surely the satisfaction that gives is greater than the fact that perhaps no one else will ever see them? 

Isn't the joy of creation enough?

Vicki