I am starting to have an overly romantic view of 2020. It seems to me as if their is ample time and space with minimal availbility for traveling that is triggering a second Renaissance period.

Because who hasn’t seen 80 thousand loaves of sourdough bread home made on social media?

And who hasnt decluttered the house?

Or homeschooling and taking up many subjects previous logged into the nether regions of ones memory.

Or trying to recreate food from restaurants that are shut down (hopefully short term).

Or had to on the fly learned how to use technology to meet all social needs that used to be done face to face?

Or had the time and space to pick up a book, or take a class, or committed to a meditation practice, or whatever?

On a global scale we have been forced to turn inward, forced back into the home, forced to be with our families, forced to be with ourselves.

Maybe this is only my personal experience. I certainly was not lacking in my educational endeavours prior to COVID. I always considered myself a bit of a Renaissance gal. I have always been about art, and crafting, and building, camping, and baking, and food processing, and gardening, and music, and…. The list goes on and on.

I have often seen something and thought “I can make that.”

And if social media is any indication of our times (and how could it not be) it seems as though this is becoming more the norm. That when we put a drastic hault on the expendauture and outpour of resources outside the home, we automotically turn out focus back to the home.

The thing about caring for and tending to a home, is that it takes a wide breath of knowledge.

We have been house hunting and it has cracked me up to see these homes that are on the market now because an elder family member has moved out, and all the crazy ass home repairs these people did themselves. Like houses with “bonus” rooms. Nah, that’s just a room you added on and didn’t get a permit for. Or a .5 bath that is literally just a toilet in a closet without even a sink. Planters that are built permanently to the inside of a house, like at the top of stairs. Forgotten shelves in basements filled with canned good covered in decades of dust.

As ridiculous as those things are, I have a certain amount of respect for it. These are people that were the last generation with a wide breath of knowledge that allowed them to be self sufficient in a way that I think has been lost for the sake of modernity. I identify with these old folks.

Granted I have had the invaluable tool of YouTube at my disposal to guide me in my well rounded interests, and I am not so dilluted to think that I could just add a room on a house without it being a major safety hazard for my loved ones, but I do feel confident in my ability to hold my own both inside and outside my home. I appreciate both fine arts and the not so fine arts.

I find it a bit heartwarming that it seems as though more people are taking up this work. The work of the home sphere, and the work of self. A general expanding of interests and knowledge that I think will lead to a better future.

So join the Renaissance revolution. Google a new recipe, become a beekeeper, learn how to make snow art, start a new business,take one of the many free courses colleges have put online, start to journal, sit down and play a board gave with the people you love. And hobby by hobby we can make the world a better place.