Pacing
This year’s Spring Equinox arrived on March 20th, and it found me wrestling with some very real reluctance to the idea of leaving the slower paced last months of Winter behind. As Spring arrives, it brings with it renewed energy, a faster rhythm of life, longer days, and the busy blossoming of trees around us. The fruit trees near my home have already sprouted hopeful buds, despite recent snowy squalls. I’ve been taking stock of the last few months and thinking about what this time has meant for me.
For the first time ever, I allowed myself to take some time to stand still. I’ve been thinking deeply. Rather than making decisions in my business from a place of scarcity, this year I want to make a meaningful shift to an attitude of abundance.
For me, this meant giving myself the sweet gift of time, as a way of rejecting the idea that I “do not have enough time”.
For me, this meant doing less for a few months as a way of rejecting the idea that I must “always be doing” to prove my value.
For me, this meant thinking more, writing more, reading more, making art for me alone, and focusing on the process and not the outcome, in order to reinforce a budding belief that:
Vitally important unseen work (that is far more valuable than any object I could make) must be given time to flourish
When I am not doing, I am still creating.
This process has been pretty scary. Financially, doing less makes no logical sense, and yet…I feel this warm den of time has been absolutely needed in order to step forward into the bright light of Spring with renewed purpose and energy. I’m ready.
Though….
Even as I embrace this change of seasons, I am reluctant to leave the incubation period of the last few months behind. I find myself wondering how to bring a slower pace of life along with me as I step into a current of increased activity. Just like taking the first step into a strong river, I feel myself pulled and almost toppled over by the force of a current I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I feel the stress of impending events and duties and unfinished projects pulling me in a series of different directions. Which to attend to first? Parts of me are still frozen near the banks of the river, reluctant to thaw. …Is it too late to head back to the shore?
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about a jarring incident I experienced and what it has to tell us about the breakneck pace of the lives we are living…I want to tell you about it:
A few weeks ago, I took a short trip to the closest grocery store to my home to pick up one single item that I needed for dinner that night - something inconsequentially small but vitally necessary for the recipe I was creating. Thinking nothing in particular, I parked my car and walked towards the door of the store. In my almost perpetual state of wariness in public settings, I let my eyes set upon any movement around me - a person getting out of their car, someone standing in conversation with a friend, birds in the distance, passing cars… then - all at once - the grill of a suburban coming right at me.
The front of this car filled my entire field of vision as time slowed, inexplicably. My mind considered: is this person really going to hit me?? Reflexively, I stepped quickly to the side, as the front corner of the car just narrowly missed my body. The person driving had made a right hand turn without looking, almost killing a pedestrian, and that sobering fact didn’t even seem to elicit a reaction. Stone faced and focused, they simply didn’t see me, not even as their car narrowly missed me. As a result, they didn’t visibly react to the event or even say they were sorry. To them, I simply did not exist.
My heart racing and adrenaline coursing through me, I flew directly into a certain kind of auto-pilot by walking into the store and completing my mission of shopping and purchasing the item I needed. I may have mumbled a curse to myself about the lack of courtesy, but that was all I allowed myself in the moment. I seemed stoic and unphased by the experience. Yet, after I got what I needed and returned home, that’s when it hit me:
I could have died going out to get groceries.
My body started shaking, and that experience held me in a grip for some time. The problem with having an incident like that in a place you go to often is that, even if you have willed your conscious mind to forget the experience, your body remembers. For weeks after, I had an extra layer of wariness in that parking lot. I could feel myself tense as I walked through the spot where that car almost hit me. Beneath the surface, I was still processing.
Here’s the problem, I think, and one that I’m guilty of all the same:
We are ALWAYS rushing.
Have we thought, in any way, as to what we are rushing? For what are we frantic? What’s the point of all this stress and activity?
Like I said, I am also guilty…
Even if I am outwardly calm, most days I am rushing. My mind is racing from one thought to the next. I’m anxious at times and thinking ahead. I rush to complete a task to get to the next. I feel pressured with a perceived “lack of time” and struggle to get “enough” accomplished. Even in conversations, I’m often rushing past really listening in order to think of my response. From day to day, if I’m overly task-oriented, I literally have to be stopped in order to slow down enough to have a simple conversation. I neglect to engage. I’m barely present.
Rush.
Rush.
Rush.
Well…
I’m over it!
So here’s my prescription:
I’d like to have a purpose for my actions, and I’m finding that I can only have intention if I slow down enough to consider what that intention should be. I’m working on taking more time to transition between moments. I’m learning how to “come into the room” and be present. I’m cultivating an internal slowness in the midst of outward activity. I’m listening deeply to the “Rest Is Resistance” words of Tricia Hearsey. All these endeavors are not easy for me. Reworking how you think is difficult in a society that encourages the opposite direction of where you’re heading.
At the start of the year, I chose the word “Presence”, among others, to focus on in earnest. I recognized in the setting of that intention that my attention has been fractured for far too long, and I am very rarely fully present. That word, “presence,” is a flag staked in the land of my heart to proclaim my value of being alive to experience - with myself, with others, and with the world around me. I have chosen to lay out that intention to mark the start of a lifelong journey.
Great things take time.
All of this to say that I am trying to hold a small and infant sense of slowness close to my chest, sheltered from the cold winds of expectation and stress during the busier times I know will follow the bright dawn of Spring. In addition, and perhaps for the very first time, I slowed enough, at times, to feel human. Now I feel a sense of fondness for the season we are leaving - a time of glacial progress, internal pursuits, dark sleep, and deep breathing.
You may have already noticed a change in how I speak…
This Winter, I put a lot of time into defining my vision for this business, and in that exploration, I thought about the many conversations I’ve been grateful to have with you over the last few years. I wanted to know why and how my art could have an impact. What I found is that you already told me all the facets of my art that are the farthest reaching:
You told me that you love my art because it captures memory.
You told me that you love my art because it captures lived experience.
You told me that you love my art because it reminds you of a loved one.
You told me that you love my art because it brings you to a place you love.
You told me that you love my art because it makes you feel inspired.
I want you to know…
I was listening!
As a result, my intention for the future is to connect more authentically everywhere I speak.
I want to fan the flames that spark of inspiration brings to life in me and in you. To do that, I’m sharing more and more of the ideas and feelings behind my art. I’m letting you into how I see the world - through moments and images and poetry and intentional word choice. I’m letting you feel how it feels to create. I’m urging you to do the same, in whatever way works for you. Overall, I’m giving you more of my imperfect self to foster a real connection, both in my art and in the everyday.
I’m sharing more openly because I realized:
Art is not one-sided. It is a beautiful process of give and take.
This day, and every day, I want to thank you for sharing your homes and your hearts with me. I’m hoping to do the same. And with that intention….
Welcome Spring!
