On flow and slow
“One life was never quite enough for what I had in mind.” —Seymour Krim
My husband and I had spent a lovely Thanksgiving morning with my mother, then drove to the woods to camp for a few days. Okay, not really camp. We stayed in a tiny cabin with large windows surrounded by a forest. In fact, the cabin had a flatscreen, and we ended up having to buy fire starters from a Logan, Ohio Walmart on Black Friday.
So we “camped” as I’m guessing most American middle-class people do.
As we walked around the store in the middle of a holiday sale kickoff, I got a little nostalgic. I used to work in a store akin to Walmart, and I remember the holidays—the repetition of the same pop Christmas songs and the irascible customers who were all looking for something that existed beyond the sale. On this Friday, I wondered if that was me.
When we returned to the cabin, my husband made a fire, and I sat out on the porch with the pups cheering him on. The wood was wet, and it wasn’t easy, but he had fun trying, and I had fun watching. We weren’t working, and while it took some time to adjust to this (and I cheated a few times), we had at least 48 hours ahead of us in which silence and nature would reign. After which, we’d go to another family function.
For two workaholics (see a post on my love of work here), a 72-hour vacation sandwiched by holiday get-togethers is pretty ambitious. It took us about 24 hours to stop thinking about all the work that was piling up and another 24 hours to finally settle like boiling water removed from the range.
I wrote a little (nothing of note) and did some yoga, then sat and watched the trees. We hiked. We didn’t talk about much more than what we saw. Potato, our more extroverted dog, made friends with everyone, while we simply smiled and said hello.
It was quiet. So, so quiet.
Silence offers an opportunity that many of us sorely miss right now. It offers time to reflect and appreciate (or soberly take stock of) our lives. Chris and I did just that, and something shifted.
I couldn’t stop thinking about working at a megastore during the holidays and being able to find the same silence in my breaks and in the times I’d escape to the bathroom just to sit and stare at the Sharpie-drawn messages people left to amuse themselves in the stall. Back then, in my early twenties, I daydreamed a lot. I was bored a lot.
Now, I’m never bored. I’m on the other side of bored (era-wise and class-wise). A person who is never bored is always producing or consuming (for money and not for money). And in many cases, doing so in a desire to find something more. Something better. We’re all aimless Walmart shoppers in our way.
As we hiked, with dogs on either side of us, we indulged the silence as we stared at the trees and path ahead. I wondered what odd memories were surfacing for Chris, but I didn’t ask.
Eventually, we arrived here, at Rose Lake.
We sat and appreciated this spot as other hikers wandered by. Then the silence broke. It started with me mentioning “happy little trees.” We talked about how Bob Ross might’ve painted this with soft words and a rather aggressive beating of the brush. And how he would’ve done quite well given that this was a pine forest and trees seemed to be where he thrived. Still waters and pine trees, to be more specific. We judged Ross’s mountainscapes and odd rock formations. The man was just better with soft shapes.
Then we talked about how much we wished we had easels and could paint what we saw.
But why?
Why do we need to constantly make our own happy little trees? Why not just sit and appreciate them now and then? It seems the end goal is always to get to a place where there’s no worry and only presence, fulfillment, and appreciation. Yet, we destroy these moments with tasks and a feeling like we need to do . . . something.
I stared at the lake and remembered this for an instant, the way I used to remember it while stealing a few moments in a bathroom stall, staring at discount store graffiti. But I forgot again as we started talking about what we’d do next. And after that. And how long the drive would be to my sister’s the next day and all we’d accomplish next year.
I remember doing the same at the superstore, thinking about all I’d do after my shift, then the day, the week, the job, the decade.
In many ways, I’m living what my former self dreamed of. I’m a lady who can afford to go camping at a place with a flatscreen. But now the dreams have changed. One day, I thought (and think), I might be the version of myself who can be okay being still because she’d have done it all or, better, didn’t need to do it all. I would be the embodiment of the lake.
But in the meantime, a river has to flow. Right? I’m honestly not sure.
Next week, I’ll talk about friendship. Wishing you all good things. xo
when 10 years old i spent much of my time in the woods. east texas is undulating and green and often wet. in the spring i took immense pleasure watching birds wade in puddles and bats dive in the night. spring was much about anticipation and its surprises provided me with a deep and sustained pleasure. The area of a rectangle is powerful in its simplicity while the area of a circle, to my ten year old mind, was enigmatic. How to cut it up, how to make it fit. The natural world did not show itself as puzzled or hidden. Insects seemed predictable. But the circle ? Not so much. And though the older people spoke. of the formula containing pi, I did not trust any of it. I wanted the puzzle to last, the mystery to propel me. To my everlasting delight the natural world and the circle have become close friends. Both conspire to tease and amuse. I remain ten years old.
Beautiful piece. I long for weekends like that and finding the strength to not have to “produce.” I feel that way in my happy places — the desert, the Irish coast, the mountains. But it takes time to get there. I fall back into a memory when in those places, the “thin” places, as they call them, to when I was a boy walking the Pennsylvania woods with my dog. Those days are frequently recalled now when I’m out in nature.