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I encountered a brilliant article written by Dr. Edward Hallowell in 2022 for ADDitude Magazine. He asks us 'what is your right difficult?' He describes this as a challenging, captivating outlet for creativity that helps you feel right about life. Hallowell also writes about this concept in the book ADHD 2.0 by both Hallowell and John J Ratey M.D., published in 2022.
To be considered a “right difficult”, it must satisfy two criteria. The first is an activity that challenges us. For example, an activity that stimulates our brains and offers us a challenge. The second is that this activity must captivate us, interest us, and that is also in our wheelhouse.
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- Written by: Stacey Smit
- Parent Category: Blog
- Category: My "Right Difficult"
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This Sunday, Tropical Depression Claudia is passing over North Carolina, a loosely-organised weather front. The rainy weather is keeping me indoors, affording me the time to do some office work and write. One thing I've got to do is shredding paper from seven years earlier, like old bank statements and letters from debt collectors. Every so often, while shredding, I'll see letters from our credit union of 'insufficient funds'.
I use shredded paper for mulch - but that's something I cover in posts about gardening. Today, I'm writing about the extortionate cost of medical care in the US. On the couch in the living room, Stacey is recovering from a medical operation. The medical insurance she is required to use from her employer - or lose her job - has a deductible of $2,000. The insurance year runs from June to July. And since she's not been employed there for an entire year yet, she is not guaranteed any paid medical leave.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Parent Category: Blog
- Category: Perspectives
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Christmas is a time for reflecting on how much we've been given and being thankful for what we have. To those who have suffered the loss of a loved partner, Christmas holds us to a hard standard.
When your loved one is gone, they are beyond the reach of your gifts and your thoughts of them are a reminder of loss. Christians celebrate the season as the time when God gave humanity the gift of becoming fully whole. But this first Christmas, I am not whole and have no view ahead of an emotional horizon in which I am able to foresee ever being whole again. I'm told this will pass, but this year, the horizon all around is uphill.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Parent Category: Blog
- Category: Perspectives
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Some of this site's content comes from a previous blog of mine called Old Water Gardens. The name of that site comes from the Creek Indian word "Wedowee", which is the type of soil on our property. "Wedowee" means "old water".
On some pages, large images have been used to provide detail that require images able to offer clarity, but the large file sizes may impact page load times negatively. If you right-click on the images and open in a new window, you'll see the larger image.
You may find the occasional broken link - but if it's a choice between being out in the garden or fixing this site, the garden will win. If you do come across a broken link - especially since some of the content on this site has been around for more than ten years and some reorganising of the site has taken place, please email me and I'll get it fixed. Similarly, if you come across a gallery that isn't loading, email me the page link and I'll get it fixed.
Thanks, and I hope you enjoy the site.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Parent Category: Blog
- Category: Featured
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This site started as a place to write about what my late wife Cynthia and I were doing to the property we have been stewards of. In 2014, Cynthia died of metastatic breast cancer and I was left to carry forward the legacy we started together. The deep emotional impact of losing my love, my friend, and the master gardener on our property has led me to begin writing more than just an account of progress and projects. So in between stories about digging and planting and renovating are accounts of loss, thoughts about life in the 21st Century, and possibly even some wisdom.
For as long as I knew Cynthia, she was living with cancer. It taught her to keep planting, to sow seeds for the future. She never knew when the cancer would return, as it did, again and again. She always wanted to see the harvest of life. In 2014, she didn't. I'm not the gardener she was and I'm sure that a lot more of the seeds I plant won't grow as well or even at all. I just don't have her green thumb, her connectness to the soil. Still, what is life if we do not sow?
One day, if I'm fortunate, this property will look a little like we had hopes for and will also bear the imprint of my vision, the one she called me to fashion after she went. I know she will be here always, enjoying the shade, enjoying the life, enjoying the rebirth, the seasons, the changing light. I hope you enjoy this place that has become my home, and which will be always a place of light and hope. Should you find pages where there is filler text, these are parts of the site under construction. Think of it like planting - it'll all turn out OK at the harvest.
Comments & Contacting Us
To send an email, please use the contact email form at the bottom. I welcome civil, constructive comments, or questions to the articles, and those can be posted at each article. Comments are published only after review, so if they don't appear immediately, please don't panic. If I don't like the tone of what you've written, it won't ever appear.
Thanks for visiting, Norman.
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- Written by: Norman Smit
- Parent Category: Blog
- Category: Featured
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