Back

A Rose garden | Day 181 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jun 30, 2023· 2 minutes

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇬🇧

My mother-in-law has a garden with beautiful roses. We went one beautiful morning, the same day we left Sealand, to spend some time with my husband's parents and say goodbye. The roses are lush, rich, and wild, and we enjoyed them as we enjoyed the company of loved ones, the sunshine - and the roses.

Roses are one of the garden disciplines to enjoy. Why do we even do it? There are so many flowers out there, wonderful as they are, blooming rich and colorful and easy to grow with no effort. Roses are delicate, vulnerable, and unique. They take time; they take skill; they take effort, they take feel.

Humans have bred roses for a long time, and we enjoy them very much. We stop to smell roses, look at roses, take pictures of roses. To be invited into a rose garden is a beautiful thing, an honor. Walking around the roses, we walk around an incredible achievement; hours spend on beauty alone.

To the rational mind, it could seem entirely off to grow roses. Still, there is something deeper in the human mind than reason, and roses - all of them - are such a great reminder of what is truly important, of how complex life is, and of the importance of stopping to enjoy and appreciate love and beauty whenever possible.

So, we stopped to enjoy my mother-in-law’s roses and the company of my children's grandparents, and as a bonus: Their friend visiting from the States, a kind and inspiringly intelligent human being whom we appreciate very much too.

It is never really fun to say goodbye to loved ones, and the ripple effect did show its hard face the following days. But we did it. Said our goodbyes and went off to get the van ready for a 100-day road trip starting that same evening.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

🇩🇰 Also available in Danish 🇬🇧 

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

But worse, much worse, is to impose this ambition on OTHERS, Adults want to set the scene for their (or others’) children to learn to their highest p…Read more
One of the reasons we chose to become nomadic was my winter depression, and one clear sign for us was when I started worrying at Summer Solstice. On …Read more
Creating a better story is a way to survive a challenging situation emotionally. The question is: Do we always do that? And is the so-called reality …Read more
True unschooling is a lifestyle where the whole idea of school has been removed from the equation, the idea of “you have to learn” and the idea of th…Read more
We live in a world of consumerism. Always shopping. Always using something. What if we stop? Stop to think. What if we let go? Read more
One thing I do not understand about modern parents. It seems they can’t get away from their children fast enough; it seems all they talk about is how…Read more
It is some form of rebellion to stop and be silent and do simple slow stuff of no obvious value. To the world, it seems we always have to be producti…Read more
On the last day we spent with my sister's family in Sweden, we shared the last bottle of champagne from my mother, whom we all lost four years ago. I…Read more
Thriving is a complex one. Human nature, our flaws, and vulnerabilities will emerge in any context where we unfold, hence also in this reign. We can…Read more