No Need to Sparkle

I recently read an article on the Penguin website (I am a member of their Bookmarks group) and the author highlighted some of the new year’s resolutions penned by Virginia Woolf in 1931:
 
“Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year:

• To have none. Not to be tied.
• To be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to parties: to sit rather privately reading in the studio.​

• To stop irritation by the assurance that nothing is worth irritation
• Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read.
• To go out yes – but stay at home in spite of being asked”.

This sounds like good advice for many of us methinks.  I am particularly enamoured by another quote by Virginia Woolf found in A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas – a feminist argument originally given as two lectures at Girton College, Cambridge in 1928.  Naturally I haven’t actually read it cover-to-cover but the essay examines the educational, social and financial disadvantages women have faced throughout history.  The quote sums up where I am currently ‘at’ or am trying to be:
 
“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
 
It is a difficult time for the family as it is a year ago on Saturday (20th March 2020) that Kate passed away.  The country is still in lockdown and we still haven’t been able to get together as a whole family in this past year. 
 
I am feeling somewhat depleted – juggling the new part-time jobs (the fifth is starting by the end of the month), the new medication (insulin) and associated tiredness – and generally flat and world-weary.  To that end, then, I have decided to consciously “move away from the tech” and therefore may not post on here or email people for a few weeks.  Instead, I am going to concentrate on sowing seeds, raising young plants, weeding and digging - I don’t need to sparkle in gardener mode!