The art of slow living.
We were sitting on a couch.
The two of us. Side by side. Amidst a small dinner party my friend was giving.
I’m not sure how it began but we started talking about the bugs in her garden.
Stick bugs. Beetles. Bees. Ants. Dragonflies.
She did most of the talking. She knew bugs.
I was enraptured.
The bugs. What they were doing. Where they were going. How they communicated with each other.
What they were saying to us.
I don’t know how she spoke with such certainty. But she had obviously spent time with them.
I am confused by this woman. She is beautiful and earthly. Observant. Present.
Slow moving.
Well, I say that… but she isn’t really slow living.
An accomplished Artist. Sculptor. Playwright. Wife. Mother.
She does things.
But with an uncanny ability to be in the moment. Present.
And obviously savoring every moment on this earth.
You feel that when you spend time with her.
My thoughts of that conversation have not faded.
She may be one of the very few that know the secret to slow living.
Slow living that doesn’t obfuscate the pace of a truly curious life.
A life that moves and stretches. Shapeshifts and grows.
But within that life of success and expansion, she has learned the talent of savoring.
Focusing.
She seeks what interests her. Takes in what appeals.
Like the bugs.
The dragonfly’s glistening wings stretched out on the shoots of the leek plants.
Bees selecting one poppy over another.
Ants following each other in learned lockstep on the edge of a zucchini bed.
