Slowing down to cross the finish line

It's been a busy year for London and a busy year for me; there must be something in the tea.  Where have the last six months gone?  Since April London has been pulsating with preparations and celebrations, from the Diamond Jubilee to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  The energy and genuine goodwill produced by all of the activity and celebration has rubbed off on everyone.  London feels vibrant and optimistic; life is bustling and it is all happening here.

Parmesean stall at Borough Market

But it is happening too fast. I remember the emotional intensity with which I watched the 100m final on the big screens at the Southbank Centre.  After all the build up and years of training that go into it, the race is over and decided in under ten seconds.  While exuberant, I felt a bit robbed at the end of it.  I watched the replays in slow motion over and over again from all camera angles, hoping to satiate my hunger.  

The last six months have been a bit of a 100m final for me. As Ryan and I are nearing the end of our time in England, my internal motto has been to 'maximize what time I've got left'--which in Emily-speak translates into overloaded busyness.  It's been an incredible six months, but I've quickly gotten over the novelty of having three part-time jobs and working six days a week.  I've finally realized, either out of maturity or exhaustion, that experience is not somthing that can be maximized with more experiences; experiences can only be 'maximized' by a prescence of being, which usually requires...slowing down.  

Webster the duck

I remember, on a visit to a tiny hilltop Tuscan village a few years ago, being completely bemused by the old men who would congregate in the town square everyday around dusk.  They would sit next to each on benches or wooden chairs and say nothing.  With crossed arms propped on their pot-bellies, not a word would pass between them.  They just sat and watched--watched the rest of village life going about its way.  I remember being so wholly enchanted by this idyllic scene of pot-bellied Italian men congregating in the town square.  But the point that enchants me now is how they sat in silence, doing nothing.  No chess game?  No backagmmon?  No sudoku?  No stories or jokes?

It is very easy for me to work six or seven days a week, to have three or four jobs, to overcommit, overplan, and overdo, making lists for the future, thinking I'm achieving something in all that efficient planning and maximization of time.  It is much harder to sit.  To wait.  To watch.  To not demand or control how time passes but to patiently await it.  While I have been good at filling up time the last few months, I haven't been as good at maximizing it.  Fortunately, working with children and animals quickly reminds me how little control I have over time and that the quiet, unplanned moments tend to be the ones filled with the most meaning and gratification.  My time at the farm has taught me to be patient--to absorb life rather than orchestrate it.  Which is why I couldn't be happier to be spending the last five months of my time in England entirely at the farm. One job. Five days a week. I'm slowing down as I near the finish because I won't be getting any slow-motion replays to satiate me.  I'm satiating myself with the present.