Twenty-one stories ago I decided I wanted to look at the idea of gentleness as it related to processing my knee surgery. I gave my theme the name Slow Forward. Since then, Slow Forward as an idea unto itself has been morphing, slowly and gently, into the way I want to continue to live my life. I don’t want to be that person who takes on too much anymore. I have finally, truly, learned to say “no.” Or, better, to say “yes” only to that which gives me joy. Marie Kondo for my mind instead of my things.
This journey we’ve undertaken together has wound me through memories I didn’t think would connect with the present as well as through fresh surgical healing. My eyes and heart have been opened to new ways of thinking about the past and how it affects my current situation. I thank you for taking this ride with me, and for the kind thoughts, affirmations, and valuable comments so many of you have shared along the way. Through them I’ve learned again the value of being publicly vulnerable in setting myself free of old thinking.
I’ve realized that if I try to rush the regaining of trust, I will set myself back. I did go down to the woods last weekend to see the owl tree and the dry creek, and it will be a while before my knee says it’s a good idea to do that again. It was a lot. That’s all right. Slow Forward.
Somewhere during the last month, the poem below found me on my Facebook feed. I’ve been saving it to share with you today as a summation. I had a poster of a turtle crawling by a vase of flowers with the Mahatma Gandhi quote “There’s more to life than increasing its speed,” on my wall in college. Even then, I knew my propensities to do too much. Too bad it took me more than forty years to take Gandhi’s advice. It’s perfect that the quote showed up here:
This journey we’ve undertaken together has wound me through memories I didn’t think would connect with the present as well as through fresh surgical healing. My eyes and heart have been opened to new ways of thinking about the past and how it affects my current situation. I thank you for taking this ride with me, and for the kind thoughts, affirmations, and valuable comments so many of you have shared along the way. Through them I’ve learned again the value of being publicly vulnerable in setting myself free of old thinking.
I’ve realized that if I try to rush the regaining of trust, I will set myself back. I did go down to the woods last weekend to see the owl tree and the dry creek, and it will be a while before my knee says it’s a good idea to do that again. It was a lot. That’s all right. Slow Forward.
Somewhere during the last month, the poem below found me on my Facebook feed. I’ve been saving it to share with you today as a summation. I had a poster of a turtle crawling by a vase of flowers with the Mahatma Gandhi quote “There’s more to life than increasing its speed,” on my wall in college. Even then, I knew my propensities to do too much. Too bad it took me more than forty years to take Gandhi’s advice. It’s perfect that the quote showed up here:
Slow Me Down
By Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Slow me down
Ease the pounding of my heart
by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace
with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amid the confusion of the day,
the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tension of my nerves and muscles
with the soothing music of the singing streams
that live in my memory.
Help me to know
the magical restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations,
of slowing down to look at a flower,
to chat with a friend,
to pat a dog,
to read a few lines of a good book.
Remind me each day of the fable
of the hare and the tortoise,
that I may know that the race is not always to be swift.
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak,
and know that it grew great and strong
because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down and inspire me to send my roots
deep into the soil of life's enduring values.
That I may grow toward the stars
of my greater destiny.
Blessings to you on your journeys forward, however fast or slow they may go.
A vintage print of my 1970's poster, being sold on Ebay for $45.
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