At this time of year, I am living in two places. One is Up and the other is Down.
This has its ups and downs. . . the biggest Up is that no one is looking at his phone while up the hill, unless scrolling through to show you a photo. Nothing is beeping, pinging, ringing, or dinging. People are present. Things are slower, less urgent, minus the frantic pace of down-the-hill living that now passes for normal.
The Down side is that while I am down the hill, I am scrambling to answer emails, respond to comments, write and schedule blog posts, send out invoices and orders, plan for new paintings, do the regular errands and the chores, and all the rest of normal life. (I also miss my kitties and my yard and my walking buddy while I am up the hill.)
While I’m having an extended stay up the hill, I make a long list of things to attend to when I get back down the hill. This way I can do up-the-hill things without wondering if I am neglecting down-the-hill things. I AM neglecting down-the-hill things, but they can wait.
Have you noticed this? These days people seem to have forgotten how to wait. There is a frantic aggressiveness in many drivers, there is a need for instant messaging and texting no matter where one is, and people must fill every second with something to do while waiting so that the time won’t be wasted. Who just stands in line, looking around or chatting with strangers any more?
Life up the hill reminds us how to wait in many ways. We pull to the side of the road in a wide spot to wait for oncoming traffic to pass, we wait for the phone to ring because there is no answering machine to grab an expected call, we wait for the fire in the wood stove to get hot enough to boil water for coffee, we wait to see various animals, we wait for friends and neighbors to arrive, and we wait until we get home to answer emails and phone messages and regular mail.
So, I hope you all are able to wait well and enjoy life in the present. (You may have to wait for a blog post that shows you my latest work in progress.)
11 Comments
lovely thoughts.
Thank you, Sally! I didn’t think I had any thoughts whatsoever until I began typing, and the thoughts just poured out. So, I really appreciate your appreciation. 😎
All so true and all so well said. Thanks for the reminder. ?
Natalie, are you waiting for a letter from me? I wrote it while Up and mailed it when Down in today’s mail.
I was fortunate enough to learn and appreciate the value of waiting and filling moments with thought and observation when I had the good fortune of spending a year on an Indian reservation in a remote area of Nevada. The people I met there were masters of the moment–in its universal as well as personal context. Pondering, relating in silence with friends, the day, the unknown, absorbing and reaching to everything surrounding them and beyond them, these people had no need for competition and aggression.
Louise, wouldn’t it be interesting to see if they have escaped the tyranny of the urgent in today’s world of instant communication?
I can identify with everything you said . . . except the “knitting” part. For me it’s crochet, of course! Otherwise, you’re right–“up the hill” is the quintessential opportunity to unplug and detox!
Sharon, perhaps I could substitute “yarn work”. . .
Nice touch!
P.S. I wish there was a way to save my name/email/blog information for each comment. The “old” site did this, and it was handy. But yeah, you don’t need another thing to figure out, do you??
Sharon, you mean you have to enter all your info every single time you comment? THANK YOU for participating anyway!
Yes, ma’am I do. Name, Email, Website.
That’s OK, you’re worth it! <3
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