A Human Pace

I feel didactic today, so I will give a lesson. "Slowing down" is the topic. Oh, you've already heard that lecture? And it doesn't apply to you? You are the exception, are you? The one person in North America who doesn't need to slow down? Or is it that you can't afford to stop spinning because you might fall over. Whatever it is, just listen.

 

I myself have listened for years to wiser people telling me to slow down. Either directly (as in "Slow, down, fer pete's sake; I can't walk that fast") or indirectly (as in, "When I walked in the park the other day I saw three new trees I hadn't noticed before, and glimpsed two foxes and one coyote, and I heard the migrating song sparrows. What did YOU see in the park?") I ignored both approaches, the direct and the indirect, until the day came when everything changed. And on that day I began to drop extraneous activities and to relish doing less.

 

But I still took off like a bat out of hell when my feet hit the pavement. I walk fast. I've always walked fast. So last week, as I hastened toward the Village for shopping, I caught myself walking fast; I thought "Wow! I'm really pushing. I wonder what it would feel like to slow down." And so I did. I consciously reduced my speed. (Of course, I moved off to the slow-lane edge of the sidewalk so as not to impede all those speed demons in the impromptu marathon I'd been part of.)

 

I slowed down and I actually felt my whole body, my whole self—go "ka-chunk." It felt as if I had come together for the first time, as if I had finally found myself after steaming along ahead of myself for all those years. It was beautiful, feeling at one with myself.

 

Now, I know how busy you are. I look at the lives of my children and my neighbours, and I can sense the urgency, the "I'm-running-out-of-time" feeling you project. So I won't suggest that you stop racing. But I do offer you a suggestion. The next time you find yourself walking as if the devil himself were nipping at your heels, take a moment and consciously slow down. From one step to the next, change speed. And notice what happens to your body. Can you feel the difference? Make note of it.

 

And then, because I know you are busybusybusy, you can resume your usual speed, if you have to, in order to get the shopping done, the walk over with, whatever it is that pushes you at that moment. Go ahead. Revert to your "normal" setting. But carry in your body the feeling you had when you consciously slowed down. Remember how it felt to approach life at a moderate, natural pace—i.e., one that is in step with Nature. And know that you can return to that feeling any time you want, and you can grow it in gradually so that one day a measured pace will be your default setting, and you will use the racing demon speed only in exceptional circumstances.

 

If you already know all this, then please just turn the page.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com