La Vita Verde…”The Green Life”

Carrying a baby and bringing new life into this world has been a life-changing experience for me in more ways than I care to count…I consider the birth of Miss B to be my greatest achievement. It has given me new perspective in so many areas of my life – it has made me fully appreciate the simple things in life, or shall I say “life’s simple pleasures”. You’re probably thinking, blah blah blah, I’ve heard this before. But for me, it goes deeper than the familiar cliche, this is a thought process that delves right down to the heart of mother earth…it lives deep down in the origins of all things ‘pure’.

Feeling a new sense of ‘place’ in the world, it makes one appreciate everything more… the world we live in bears a heavier weight – the very ground that our children walk upon, the sky they look up at, the air that they breathe. I often stare in amazement as our daughter gazes with sheer wonder at nature, she loves to be outside in the fresh air. Watching her take in all the colours and the sounds is for me a perfectly pure moment in time. When we observe this behaviour in a baby we are watching true human behaviour, unaffected by man made paraphernalia. This is how we were designed to interact with our world – with sheer wonder and respect. Perhaps this is what we’ve slowly lost sight of along the way, something that’s been eroded with time, it’s still there in us but you have to look harder for it these days…it seems to carry less depth in meaning.

Yesterday this phrase popped into my head…”la vita verde”. It’s nothing special – it means “The Green Life” in Italian and Italy holds a special place in my heart – but it had a certain ring to it which I liked. More than ever now I have a renewed interest and passion for protecting this beautiful world of ours; for playing my part & standing up for what is right; for taking more time to admire all the beauty that surrounds us in nature (for this is true beauty like nothing else); for nurturing my child’s love of the outdoors so that she may play freely on the earth as a child should; for living in a place where I feel more in touch with the world; for implementing a greener way of life; moreover, I now have a greater sense of responsibility and in turn carry a heavier burden watching our world through my child’s eyes. We cannot afford to lose sight of what is at stake.