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WHEN FAST IS SLOW

I am not so great with the Here and Now. I try. Really I do. But, I can only manage being present in small doses. After that my mind is already at the edge of the next building, the next day, the next year or an alternative reality. Maybe that's because my Here and Now sometimes looks a lot like sitting in the gutter, contemplating reflections in the glassy puddles, hoping it won't rain again just yet because I am still sitting outside my life. My husband is a Here and Now kind of guy. He misses most of the puddles in life and often wonders why my feet are wet. He's the romantic soul staring up at the light post saying, "Tab, you have to see this street when it's all lit up." "It lights up?" "Oh yeah, streets always light up." "They do?" "Sure they do. You just have to wait." Waiting...yeah... I am not so good with waiting either. Waiting entails stillness. Stillness requires being in the Here and Now. You see my problem? Reflections need stillness. Ever thought about how little you see of yourself if you are running past a mirror? Finding things, really seeing things, often requires stillness, and I like to move. Simply sitting and breathing and being... wow... I find that very hard. Writing is one of the few places where I am able to still myself inside. When I write all my racing down roads, banging my head against brick walls and trying to skid around corners is stopped and I am still. In that stillness I hear myself. I see myself. I find the whispering. And I am able to listen. A wise woman taught me that stillness might really be moving. She said that fast is often slow. I thought about that for a long time before I understood. Sometimes the quickest way to the core of ourselves, to the Here and Now and all the beauty we seek, is in the going slow. Fast just races. It doesn't necessarily find what it is looking for. Fast is prone to crashing. And fast has a tendency to get lost a long, long way from home. Fast often needs to back track. Stillness uses its hands to feel its way down streets. It notices the lamp post and has time to wait for the street to light up. Stillness sees the puddles, walks around then and can see its own reflection. Stillness has a better chance of finding what it is looking for because it is hard to miss what you are purposefully slowing down to notice. Stillness moves forward, albeit slowly. Stillness is not berating itself for what it is. It accepts with calm certainty that life has many speeds and sometimes fast is not fast at all. Sometimes fast is slow. Written by: Tabitha Bird             Used with permission.      back to top