It would be very easy, stuck in our quarantine room for eleven days, to only see the negatives: the loss of freedom, the isolation, the noise from the building site opposite…
So I decided today that I would deliberately look out for the goodness, truth and beauty around.
And here is what I found:
- The goodness of four young adults enjoying a game of Four Square in the middle of the exercise yard
- The goodness of the armed forces, security guards and hotel staff doing their jobs diligently and with friendliness and grace
- The goodness of Mma Ramotswe’s kind words to her assistant Charlie in Alexander McCall Smith’s latest novel (yes, I know that the traditionally-built proprietor of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana is only a fictional character, but she is portrayed so well that her goodness still shines through!)
- The goodness of discovering that the 24-storey building site across the road is actually a gutting and recycling of an old building, thus helping to reuse resources and reduce waste, rather than demolishing and starting from scratch
- The truth portrayed in a couple of research papers submitted to our journal
- The truth that is slowly coming together as I think about a paper for my PhD
- The truth embraced by the precision engineering on the building site – how it all holds together securely and safely
- The unusual stunning beauty of the spikey flowers on the big red bromeliad on the exercise deck (alcantarea imperialis)
- The pristine beauty of three white gardenias after Lois and I had gone round dead-heading them
- And yes, even the ordered beauty of a well-constructed building
