Shadows

I’m back and if I’m honest I was feeling a little guilty about not posting for a while. I started this as a creative outlet and to hold myself accountable. When I began writing a few weeks ago, I had been very consistent in taking the time to slow down every day for about a month. Of course as soon as I started sharing here I experienced some disruptions in my schedule which threw me into a bit of a rut. However, I’ve decided I’m not going to feel guilty about not posting because this is not meant to add stress or guilt. I have worked for years to quiet the voice that tells me (and most women) I should feel guilty for almost everything. The guilt follows me everywhere I go like a shadow (cheesy I know but I have a bunch of photos of shadows in my house so it works). Everything I do, don’t do, don’t do quick enough, don’t do right etc. So today I’m practicing giving myself a little grace. I’m taking the time to reflect and just enjoy the slow changing shadows at home.

Even though I haven’t been writing I have done some nice slow things recently and I’ll be sharing those tomorrow!

One Slow Weekend

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Friday- Books and Porches

Friday was my first day of getting this site up and running and it was ironically really hard to find the time and mental space to do one slow thing. Before starting this site I had been pretty successful for a few weeks doing one slow thing a day but Friday I was reminded why I started this to begin with. Between doing everything I needed to get the site live, chores, other projects, exercising and a regularly scheduled Friday Zoom party I not only had very little time but I also just couldn’t calm my mind. Despite all of that I still made myself sit down and read a book on the porch for about 30 minutes. I listened to the birds and watched an overcast day clear into a beautiful blue sky evening and it was good.

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Saturday- Lazy Puzzle

I cheated a little on Saturday but oh well! I sat down and worked on a puzzle for about two hours straight but….I had the TV on. So that broke my no screens rule but at least I wasn’t mindlessly watching something for hours and hours as can sometimes happen in our house on Saturdays. I really just was enjoying some background noise... its progress I guess.

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Sunday- Non-Festival Walk

Every spring our neighborhood has a big festival, they shut down the streets and people come from all over the city to see the parade, eat food and stroll through the artists’ market. We love all the spring festivals because they provide a great excuse to spend the whole day outside with friends. This year's festival, which was scheduled for this weekend, was obviously canceled. On Sunday my one slow thing was to take a long walk through the neighborhood, the weather was perfect and it was nice to see all of the sidewalk art the neighborhood kids had drawn in honor of festival weekend 2020.

The Challenge

I’ve been working on slowing down and trying to find quiet moments for a while now without much success. These days it seems as though we have been forced to. Forced to stay home, our days are no longer filled with the many appointments, engagements and obligations they once were. However, despite all of this new found time, I am still finding that actually being still and slowing down is just as hard as ever.

There are still so many distractions and noises competing for our time and attention all day long. Don’t get me wrong I love TV, I love the hundreds of texts and emails I receive from family and friends every day, I love podcasts, I love scrolling endlessly through websites reading and learning about the world, I love online shopping/browsing, I love endlessly scrolling through Zillow (searching for the dream home always) and the list goes on.

I also love disconnecting from all of that and find that the days I take the time to step away and take the time to do something away from the screens and the noise are just better. So this blog is about that. It’s about doing one slow thing every day. Just one thing.

It might be turning some music on and cooking something from scratch, taking a long slow walk or it might just be sitting on the porch with a glass of wine.

Whatever it is I'll be writing about it here.