By Neal Lemery
Life doesn’t seem to offer much space for patience these days. Technology wants an instant response to instant messages, with no time “built in” for being able to react, contemplate, or thoughtfully respond.
I’m thinking we should intentionally live at a slower pace, taking time to do our projects, write and create what we are wanting to do, and to respond and interact without a lot of time pressure. I’m at my best when I think about my projects and my responses to others, to be thoughtful and contemplative. I do my best work in that style, that pace. When I’m not hurried, I work better, and I am a better person with others.
When I cook, I like the slower methods, the crock pots, roasted vegetables, the slow cooked roasts in the oven, the making of homemade bread. I enjoy making the slow cooking projects, like vanilla extract, which should take months of mostly soaking vanilla beans in vodka, and letting several months go by where all I do is wait.
I’m a gardener, too, and that process, by definition, is to get myself dirty, then wait for soil, water, and sun to work their miracles. The good stuff comes later, and the deadlines are manageable. Part of that task is the planting of trees and shrubs, which requires a calendar marked off in years, if not decades. The trees I planted as a kid are still “in progress” and still have a long ways to go until one could say the project is “finished.” Isn’t that the point?
I like the idea that for a lot of things, one doesn’t “finish” them. Unmeasured outcomes are deliciously anti-American.
Last week’s ice storm was a good lesson in patience. The roads got ugly and slick, and the community was cautioned to stay home and not put ourselves at risk. I filled up the bird feeders, made sure I had the essentials for several days of eating, and finished up all the chores that depended on electricity. If the power went out, then I would be ready.
I found my flashlights, charged up the electronics, made sure I’d planned for meals the next couple of days, and curled up in my chair with small stack of books. The weather soon turned ugly, with the deck and driveway coated with ice, and I began my home “staycation.” I took time to see the beauty in the ice and snow, getting out my camera to take in some of that beauty, and share it with my friends.
While I grump sometimes about the speed and demands of technology, I do enjoy the ability to easily share some of the beauty and serenity of the neighborhood, if only to remind myself that a big part of life is appreciating nature, and taking time to just “be.” It is a form of mediation, of worship, if you will, some special “me” time.
A good storm and hanging out at home is a good reminder of what life is all about, that I am not beholden to our society’s insistence that I be productive, a committed worker, that it really is just fine to be thoughtful, contemplative. In that, when I am in that mental space of being thoughtful, even tranquil, I find that the best ideas come, that I am truly the most productive and content.
I realize I need to go to that mental space more often, that I can and should be intentional about that search, that process, that journey of self-awareness and self-discovery. I not only deserve it, but I that is my destiny, the reason for my existence.
Books: NEW book – Building Community: Rural Voices for Hope and Change; Finding My Muse on Main Street, Homegrown Tomatoes, and Mentoring Boys to Men