Moving at the Speed of You

My mom would be proud of me.

I recently made a black raspberry crisp from berries we picked in our own yard. 

She would have loved this—she would love that we have raspberries in our yard. And she was always teaching us about connecting to nature and the world around us. 

I thought of her as I mixed butter into the oats and flour.

She was the one who taught me to hold table knives and criss cross them like scissors to cut cold butter into dry ingredients.  

I realized as I did this that I hadn’t cut butter into anything in a few decades. I generally don’t bake because if I bake, I want to eat everything I make.

As I brushed the blades against each other, I smiled thinking of my mom—she always thought it was funny that I was not good at slow-mixing ingredients into anything.

I remember asking her, “What exactly is folding?”  

This process just didn’t compute. As you can imagine, making meringue of any kind is a challenge for me. 

Folding is just too slow for me. 

My mother had the patience for it. She had the patience for a lot of things. Her pace was more deliberate and careful than mine—she was willing to go slow in order to get it perfect, to get it right. 

I was always too busy for things like folding. 

I move at a pace faster than that. 

My speed is more like a Vitamix—I like that I can crush ice, water, a banana, and protein powder in about 10 seconds.

We all have a rhythm to us. 

On a scale of folding to Vitamix, where do you fall? 

Once when I was in high school, my mother went with my boyfriend and me to Sea World. When the dolphin show was over, I was out of the stadium patiently waiting for them before they came out. I hadn’t realized my boyfriend wasn’t behind me when I left our row. I just quickly snaked my way through the crowd so I could get on to the next big thing. 

He, on the other hand, took all the time in the world. He let people in front of him, ambling along, probably paused to throw something away, flowing at the measured and deliberate pace he moved through life.

And my mother ended up in the middle—trying to keep track of both of us in thousands of people.

What is your favorite pace to move through your days? 

I move like lightning so I don’t have to miss out on anything. I like to pack a lot into a day. There are a million things I like to do and in order to do them all, I have to squeeze things in at a super-speed rhythm to make it happen.

But I do realize this is based on a misconception.

The thing that’s not good about moving fast is you can miss out on things.

I might miss a sparrow resting on a plant hanger in our front yard. Or not notice that a very unique day lily has bloomed in our perennial garden. Or I might miss a look that someone gave that I never saw.

In third grade, I actually rushed out the fire door to recess so quickly that I sliced my earlobe on the door lock.

They had to go find my sister and the school nurse because I was literally bleeding.

A pace can have its costs.

It can actually draw blood.

What has moving too fast cost you?

Or perhaps your pace is the opposite. And if that’s the case, what has moving too slowly cost you?

For me, it’s about learning to slow down. 

To build in boundaries to help me find more air. 

This means I am spending less time on screens. 

More time outside. 

And summer is truly magical for this!

I love the organic, measured rhythm that nature offers us. The speed of the tide flowing in. The path that a leaf takes as it slowly floats to the ground. The delicate pace that the clouds move.

Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speed, wrote, “The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections–with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds.” 

But this could also be true in the opposite: Sometimes going too slowly or too deliberately means we can miss opportunities.

Only you know the ideal pace of you.

What might you imagine could change in your life if you adjusted your pace in the slightest way?

What connections might you make? 

Or what might your world look like if you could take it 5 mph faster or slower than you usually do?

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