I will not speed back up
a restful musing
a poem by me
It takes time.
It takes time.
honey, a lot of it
to grow
to evolve
to mature
into who we are supposed to be.
While we wait
we can know,
that we are loved just the same.
I have been actively reflecting on the earliest days of the pandemic. I remember the before-times of course as well. How in January I sat on a beach celebrating my birthday by myself and crying over the things that I wanted to accomplish in a new year. I wanted to be different. I wanted to hug the people that I loved. I wanted to dream bigger dreams. I determined within myself that nothing would stop me from living fully. And so I dreamt on that beach and cried with God in that vulnerable way that only some who have been heartbroken and crushed know. Tears towards a new journey.
And then the world closed down.
And then the world experienced anguish.
As I sat in my home alone, I experienced waves of anxiety that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Sleeplessness overtook me and I wondered how long a pandemic could truly last. As days turned into weeks, I learned to live with anxiety as my companion and started to truly consider the pace that I had been living under before the pandemic. I cried alone as I felt how my body had years of exhaustion that I had never been allowed to fully attend to. Even as someone who loves contemplation and sitting in silence, I realized that I had continually put myself in social situations, and working situations that tore me down physically and emotionally. And so…I slept. I read. I drank my water and learned to sit in silence unending. As the months wore on a question began nagging at my heart; how could I ever go back to running at such a fast pace? This slower pace of life helped to resurrect me. My favorite memories are going on an hour walk every evening. I would just enjoy the movement of my body, the fresh air, and the pleasure of my own company.
As the world declares emphatically that we are post-pandemic, I find myself reluctant to agree. Covid has not gone away. And, just as importantly, society has not recovered. At all. There is a mad dash to speed things back up. An attempt to reclaim what was lost in this pandemic by trying to “play normal.”
Well. I affirm that I will not speed back up. I cannot take every call. I cannot take every opportunity. My body and soul require ease. I don’t need to be brilliant 24/7 and refuse the subtle ways that competition pulls at my heart. In fact, the great philosopher Cardi B speaks to this when she says:
I am learning and unlearning in these days. I want to show up as my whole self.
I want to highlight two posts along these lines that really resonated with me recently…particularly as we move through Women’s History Month. The first is by
on building something human. The next is by on small daily endeavors worth investing in.*If this post resonated with you in some way please comment below and/or share with someone you know.*
In her book, Becoming Kin, Patty Krawec shares that in the Anishinaabe creation story, human are created last, "the least and neediest of all creation...[everything else] existed without us." All creatures need rest, and the earth itself needs rest as evidenced by farmers leaving a field fallow for one or more cultivation cycles. It follows that we need rest too. Not just enough sleep to get by, but rest, so that we can be rejuvenated like the fallow field.
I think COVID showed us that our frenzied schedules can come to a screeching halt, and the sky will not fall; that all professions are valuable, despite how workers get compensated; and that revolutionary change is possible. If our frenzied pace of life renders us little more than cogs in a machine, we are stripped of our joy and our humanity.
Love this. Especially the poem and “I don’t need to be brilliant 24/7.”