Giving the gift of slowness

Pressing pause on a life spent running

The older I get, the dizzier our collective need for speed and quantity makes me. The 30-day challenges and side hustles and life hacks. More is better, faster is more impressive. The more degrees you have, the more books you’ve read, the more views you get, the more clothes you own. The faster you can attain status, the faster you can achieve your dreams, the faster you can heal, upwards only. More and faster, forever.

When I was younger, it was romantic to be burnt out. To work yourself to the bone meant you were taking yourself to the edge of your potential, pushing at the limits of your body and brain. I wanted to be everyone’s everything, the eldest daughter with everything together, the brown girl proving herself, kind and assertive and beautiful, always, every minute, every day, no faltering, no failing. 

But now, when I lose myself in a daydream, I think of myself 20 years from now. I think of her wrinkles, crow’s feet at her eyes, an echo of decades of laughter. I think of the family I dream of cultivating, sitting in our house in silence. The sound of toys or pages turning or the refrigerator humming, but mostly the sound of nothing. The sound of  slowness. It’s not a languishing or a laziness. Rest is a doing in its purest form. To go against all this fast is to allow ourselves grace. Unclench your jaw, unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, loosen yourself, until your muscles are in their natural position and your mind wanders the way minds are meant to do.

Now, when I read a book, I want to chew on it. I want to go back and read that part again. At this rate, I may only finish a few a year, but at least I will have remembered them, made a temporary home in that new world. Now, when I knit, I’ll go back and redo the rows that are wobbly. I take my time unravelling the yarn and it will take me months to finish this sweater, I will wear it on a frosty November morning and this is what they mean when they say it’s a labour of love. Now, when I leave the movie theatre, I want to sit in the parking lot and talk about it for hours. What did you think? How did it change you? Tell me about it. I’ve got time.

Now, when I cook, it is less about hunger and need, and more about the motions. I’m tending to the garden of my body. The onions make my eyes water as they scatter into half-moons on the chopping board. I love you, this says. The carrots, chopped into medallions, will sit in the garlic, taking their time to soften. The sizzle sounds like a thousand small whispers. I care about you, this says. I knead the dough, hair falling into my eyes, and leave it in the fridge to rest for the night, to let it grow and rise the way rest does. I braise the meat and bring the soup to a simmer and feed my sourdough starter. Let’s be slow together, this says.

I want to gift my loved ones the luxury of rest. The gift of a good, thick sleep. The gift of snoozing their alarms. I want to give them the grace of slowness, the patience of time. When I can see the to-do lists still whirring in their eyes, I want us to slow our breathing together, talk about something unimportant together. 

When I finally see him, after the longest we’ve been apart, we will spend our days slowly. I imagine putting the hours into a taffy puller, stretching the sweetness into forever. We will nap in our lunch hour and talk into the night. A pocket of peace in a life spent rushing. A slow and restful love.

Recently, I told someone that after the move, I’ve felt like I’m living outside of my life. The days are passing and the sun returns, reliably, every morning, but I’m watching myself through a dusty window, the edges of my other self are soft and fuzzy. I’m seeing her live a stranger’s life, cooking in pots I never bought, walking along streets with names I can’t recall off the top of my head. Some days I miss my life so much I can taste it, burnt and bitter on my tongue. If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it, did its loved ones know? Was it scared?

I overdose on distractions. I work late without having to. I look into part-time work. I become more obsessive than usual about spending this time well, about having something to show for it. I start moving so fast that I don’t have time to be weighed down.

But the thing about this flavour of lonely is that is demands slowness. It has me running a bath to get wrinkly in. Cleaning the forgotten corners of this unfamiliar apartment, scrubbing until the tips of my fingers are raw. Taking the long way home. Reheating my coffee so it lasts longer. Loneliness is intentional — it says you can’t be efficient about this. You have to go through, not around. I will give myself this gift and take my time unwrapping it, folding each sheet of paper up for safe-keeping, for giving someone else this gift another time. I will come home to myself.

She would be surprised that I kept my optimism. I imagined that growing older would make me jaded about people, to the point of cynicism becoming my baseline. I imagined I’d hit a point where my belief in our inherent goodness would dissipate. Teenaged Ramna would be surprised that even after all the things that harden us about the world, I remain believing that there are not necessarily good people or bad people — there are only people, who do things that affect other people in good ways or bad ways. Sometimes terrible ways. But that we are all deserving of something.

She would be surprised to hear that aging doesn’t scare me. That I’m excited to be in my thirties, to have kids, to learn all the versions of myself I will grow into, to throw dinner parties for my forever friends, with a sturdy love by my side. She would be surprised to know I dream of stability and simplicity and that this is an adventure too.

She would be surprised to see I continue to do the things that seemed so beyond my grasp. She would be surprised and very, very proud. I love her for that.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

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I hope you stick around. Sending love and rest,

Ramna