Don't Rush! Notice!

Today, Monday, started like a normal summer day.  I woke at 6am, put on clothes and walked out into my garden. My morning and evening garden-walks are among the high-lights of my day these days. This morning was especially beautiful as a few thunderstorms that had gone through the area had left the garden lush and wet, reminding me of Cat Stevens' Morning Has Broken. Temperatures had dropped, too.  A light breeze was moving the leaves of the four tall trees that provide our garden with shade, playground for lots of animals . . . and with additional beauty.

As always my youngest, Gabriel, and I had breakfast outside on the front-porch, "reading" the paper (with him scanning the forecast reading the temperatures of the week to me) and me quickly making it through the head-lines of the day. Both of us had slept like stones and felt sluggish. He wasn't really hungry and, at first, didn't want to eat, but rather play with his bow and arrows. So, we were beginning to run behind.

Recently I have begun to embrace a new principle in my life.  As it turns out I had often used this principle to reassure others, but had somehow failed to apply it to myself.  The principle is:

Don't rush!

To my knowledge nobody had ever reflected it back to me until I met a very special person who I immediately recognized as my heart-mender. I had said it to her once or twice--Don't rush!--and, one day, she sent it back to me, in a text-message . . . and it made me choked up with tears. Goosebumps all over.

So, today began to turn into a day where I could try applying this principle. Don't rush, I said to myself. And to Gabriel, who still wasn't hungry, I said something about eating--faster--only twice.  He was still eating when I saw the nest that had fallen out of the Linden-Tree. Three robins, almost ready to fly, were lying next to it, dead. I took my time, showed them to Gabriel, then dug a shallow grave for them next to the house and buried them. I had gone inside to quickly clean the kitchen when Gabriel came in, his plate and cup precariously balanced on one arm while trying to open our storm door with the other hand. I caught it just in time . . . still the bike tires needed to be pumped up, a tail-light needed to be switched from one bike to another . . . we had just left when I realized I had forgotten my office keys . . . I decided to not rush, drop off Gabriel at camp first before returning home to retrieve my keys . . . then back on the way to work . . . my head-light fell off, I rode right over it, heard it crack  . . . did not stop . . . decided to ask Jacob or Noah to bring me a new light . . . when I came to the office my client had canceled. Don't rush, I had said to myself. And, for the most part, I didn't.  But here is what happened: I suddenly felt sad and afraid.

Not rushing brings so much pleasure to my life, so much enjoyment. I listen more carefully to the end of a story I am told, I find myself wanting to play yet another song with my son Jacob, I appreciate Noah taking the time he does to get himself ready for school or work, I enjoy an embrace or kiss . . . I don't check the time anymore when I'm supposed to meet someone (or someone is supposed to meet me). There is a different (if not a first-time) trust in the flow of things, that things will work (themselves) out.

But not rushing can and does also mean this: I get to taste the one piece of a strawberry in my muesli that was brown and slightly inedible, I look at those dead robins and am reminded of dying, I am reminded, too, of my three "robins"--my boys--who I pray will be able to fly and fly well before their current nest disappears. Not rushing can mean that I am enveloped by sadness about someone's death, someone's absence, the passing of a season, the wilting of my beautiful hydrangeas. Not rushing means that I take time to behold my sons and, while I sit still to watch them, they grow and change in front of me. Not rushing means I am experiencing sadness after a beautiful evening or night with my lover winds down

In one word: not rushing means noticing. It means noticing the world and what's in it with all its beauty and ugliness. It means noticing the world as it is. Not rushing means that I experience the world as "bitter-sweet."

What would it take, I wonder, not to rush so much anymore? What would it take not to rush others anymore? Is it possible to do this in a world where saying "I'm busy" amounts to saying I am a good person? And where saying "I'm am not busy" amounts to saying I am lazy? Many of us understand, I think, that busyness can get in the way of pleasure. We often talk about it regretfully. But we don't often speak about busyness as getting in the way of sadness and fear.  Rather, we encourage busyness as the antidote to sadness and fear. But what about the pleasure of sadness? What about the sadness of pleasure? If I want to know these feelings and their intricate relationship with each other, I have to stop rushing.

I would like to hand this to my boys as the gift of their father's wisdom. Will it be useful to them? They will have to gather their own experiences with rushing and slowing down. For the most part, I think, I have learned from them about slowing down.