Slow it down

for those times when you're "swept along by the current"

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The last few weeks, I’ve been swept along in the end-of-semester + holiday current, which, of course, coincides with my kids having dress-up days, which is fun for them but abjectly cruel for parents, who, along with the usual impossible list of tasks, have to make sure that their child ends up at school wearing—in addition to underwear, clothes, socks, shoes, a relatively clean face— a silly hat, which honestly feels like a slap in the face.

It’s the time of year when everyone you know starts sharing some variation of this meme, or faintly chuckling at it in the bathroom at work:

ubiquitous internet opinion on adulthood

None of this feels worth mentioning at a time in which many people are fighting to stay alive, mourning those they’ve lost, fighting to maintain bodily autonomy, or to find clean water or air.

No matter how much I meditate or journal or turn off my phone, life feels like a cart rolling down a hill that’s caught on fire at just the time when the natural world is telling us to just slow it down for god’s sake. Couldn’t we just put the to do list down? Snooze another time or two? Hibernate a little?

I keep thinking of Merwin’s poem, “Here Together”:

HERE TOGETHER

These days I can see us clinging to each other
as we are swept along by the current 
I am clinging to you to keep you from 
being swept away and you are clinging to me 
to keep me from being swept away from you
we see the shores blurring past as we hold
each other in the rushing current 
the daylight rushes unheard far above us 
how long will we be swept along in the daylight
how long will we cling together in the night 
and where will it carry us together

—W.S. Merwin, from Garden Time, Copper Canyon Press, 2016.

If we try to keep with the pace “where will it carry us” and how can we be together when we’re each flailing in our own choppy waves?

This morning, I wanted to write something for you, but there was nothing in my head except anxiety and anger over ALL THE THINGS in the world. So, I read back through the last week of fragments and quotations I’d written in my notebook. These words by Thomas Merton jumped out at me:

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence.”

This made me think of the command: slow it down. I’ve carried this advice with me for over a decade, from my time working on the staff of the first-year writing program at Carnegie Mellon with the brilliant, big-hearted professor and program director, Danielle Zawodny Wetzel. Our work often entailed putting out fires together. And, although I cannot remember now what particular fire made us write this command on the white board in Danielle’s office, I can still see it written in all caps in black marker:

SLOW IT DOWN.

When a fire presented itself, we couldn’t see a way forward if we were rushing through it. We couldn’t see much at all, just the blurred landscape passing by. But if we slowed down and turned to each other to talk it out, or just thought it through for a minute, usually some options came clear.

Nowadays, this line is written on a sticky note at my desk. When I see it, I try to stop and slow it down, even if just for a moment.

I was annoyed at first when Nico called me to look at this rainbow across the street, but then wow.

There is so much of what life is that we have no control over. What we need to slow down comes into our lives without regard for whatever else we’re already holding. My own faltering attempts at mindfulness remind me that what we can control is how we take in what we look at, listen to, and touch. We can control how we respond to it.

Rather than rushing to do one more thing at the end of the day, we can call it a day and turn to something that slows the currents down a notch or three. I’m imagining that it’s like being in charge of the lever at a wave pool. (It’s probably actually a button on a computer that runs those waves, but I’m imagining a lever. Go with it).

What Danielle and I were doing when we wrote that line on the white board was to remind ourselves that just about every problem could be solved by slowing it down to think for a moment.

What are those levers for you? What helps you to slow down the current? To see and think clearly?

In that spirit, here are a few things you might try to slow it down wherever you are now. Choose one and see where it takes you.

Prompt

• Pause & notice something beautiful. Find one thing around you that is beautiful and look at it, take it in, and share it with someone. You could write about it, describing it with specific details—or, send a photo of it to a friend—or, simply observe it with your senses and let that be enough. It could be something that is typically perceived as beautiful, or it might be something that you think is beautiful that others do not (I’m thinking about Elizabeth Acevedo’s “Rat Ode”).

  

  I did this a few days ago when I left work—and look at these clouds!!

• Read this Jane Hirshfield poem, “Meeting the Light Completely” and take a few minutes to meditate or write from whatever this brings up for you.

• Dance it out. Here’s a playlist for you of some of my favorite dance songs. A small thing that’s been helping me slow it down this week is to put an event in my calendar each day to dance. Some days I blaze past it and say “nope.” But I always feel better when I say, why not? What’s the song that helps you slow it down and just dance when they come on? Tell me in the comments and I’ll add it.

• Sit down, put your feet up, and just DO NOTHING BUT EXIST for a little while. Seriously, try it. If anyone looks at you funny, tell them it’s for research.

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Be Where You Are is about how to use writing and mindfulness to be where you are. You’re always welcome to reply to this email, comment below, or find me on instagram (@mohnslate) or elsewhere. If you enjoyed this, I’d love it if you would subscribe, share this post, or send it to a friend.