I recently stumbled upon this reflection that I wrote many years ago. My sons are now 16 and 19 years old, and still I savor each moment of togetherness we share. This essay feels to me like a good late-summer invitation - an opportunity to slow down and savor the harvest of late summer. I hope you smile in recognition and sigh in relief as you read these words…
It's Friday evening - pizza night. I'm standing in the garage with my 10-month-old on my hip, a diaper-laden backpack on my shoulder, and a hot pizza box sizzling in my hands. My four-year-old sits in the car, playing with wipes.
"Let's go," I say. "It's supper time." He dawdles in that fabulous, timeless, what's-the-hurry mode of a contented four-year old. My shoulders tighten.
"Come on, Bud," I snap. "We need to get a move on."
Truth is, we don't need to get a move on. I'm uncomfortable at the moment, yes, but we don't have any reason to rush. We have plenty of time left in the day to eat our pizza, plenty of time before bed to enjoy a quiet evening together. This sense of hurry, I wonder as we trample into the house, where does it come from?
SLOWING DOWN
Later that night, after being awakened by first one and then the other boy, I pull out my headphones and tune into a dharma talk by Gil Fronsdal, one of my favorite meditation teachers. He opens this talk on lovingkindness by explaining that the first step in shedding the crustiness around our hearts is slowing down. If you want to sow the seeds of love, he says, change your attitude about time. The world softens and opens when you slow down and offer your loving attention to each moment.
I lie in bed, a small heart beating on either side of me. I swallow hard as I consider how often we rush, even when we have nowhere to go and all day to get there. I consider how often my sons will feel hurried as they grow, and I offer a big thank you for the many moments they have now to linger in the eternal now. At the moment, we live a fairly open and unfettered life. So why am I always pushing us forward at a breakneck pace?
My four-year-old is still young enough to look up at me with dreamy eyes and ask, “Is it morning or are we getting close to bedtime?" Or "What day are we in?" And even occasionally, "Did we just have Christmas or is going to happen soon?"
I long to be so firmly planted in the here and now that I am able to forget about the ticking kind of time. I wish I were a better lingerer, a lollygagger, able to just sit and let life unfold as it will, slowly and without much of an agenda. And I feel remorseful about the many times I've rushed my children out the door for no good reason but my own grown-up impatience.
GOING NOWHERE SLOWLY
In the dark of the night I pledge to let my kids dive more fully into each moment, to kick the habit of dragging them forward at high speed without good reason. I vow to let our next month be “Going Nowhere Slowly” month, a time when I’ll let my children teach me about slowing down, about opting out, about lollygagging in the little delights that make themselves apparent only when our eyes are focused resolutely in the present.
In the weeks ahead, we'll give ourselves permission to opt out of running at the speed of everyone else’s life. We'll make the most of the phrase, "We have nowhere to go and all day to get there."
I know we’ll be happier and less strained. I know our breath will soften and our lives will grow larger when we let the spinning legs of time run on away from us, and commit ourselves to simply basking in the glorious now.
So here's to a "No Hurries, No Worries" season ahead. Let's settle into the quiet pockets of our lives and let the larger, faster world wear itself out without us.
Care to join us? Take your time getting to our oh-so-slow party. There's absolutely no hurry at all.
You are ahead of the game, Claudia. I didn’t get this until I became a grandma. ❤️