Maybe it started with that incredible slow-down of time in my two-week stay in that Northern Indian ashram.
Then again, the seeds might have been planted during my ten-day silent retreat in the interior of British Columbia where time became taffy, golden and infinite.
It might too, be a cumulative effect of 53-years of wear and tear on my grey matter.
Or maybe the damage from my forehead’s encounter with a truck windshield thirty-seven years ago has finally shook something loose.
Whether it’s one, or none, of these things isn’t the point. Somehow I have arrived at this juncture in my life with a perfectly warped sense of time. A place where my days feel full to the brim…in a really good way (in fact, my current state often finds me muttering, please let me live to experience more, more, more of this gloriously messy perfection) and yet…my response to most situations has slowed to a crawl.
Here’s what I’ve concluded:
I am living proof as to why you need to believe those cliches about not taking anything personally.
I used to be the gal who answered phone calls and emails in a lickety-split fashion. I would even go so far as to say I took a fair amount of pride in my get-‘er-done way of dealing with stuff. But lately I’ve only remembered to return phone calls days and days after they were sent. I find neglected emails languishing at the bottom of my inbox, or, I approve a comment on my blog and forget – completely – to respond. I pencil in dates on the wrong week and show up at the wrong restaurant.
None of this tardiness and errors in daytimers has anything to do with the person who sent the email, made the phone call, booked the date, told me the address or wrote the comment.
It is, quite obviously, not about them at all.
Instead, this new way of operating seems to have snuck up on me, a non-system that has morphed all my previous squares and tickety boxes into squiggly organic lines that morph and swim in ways that defy tidy check marks.
So.
Please feel free to write again, ring me twice, repeat your texts or yell my name. Most of all, please take this as my advance apology for any future tardy responses.
Consider me as your proofed up pudding. The next time I don’t respond – don’t assume the worst. It just might be that my latest hormonal flash tide has swept the beach of my brain clean.
It is SO not personal. I promise I’m doing my best.
Wow, so many great words and phrases in this post and the comments. The wordie in me is wildly sustained.
“Time became taffy, gold and infinite” |
The whole sentence about feeling free to… |
hormonal flash tide sweeping the beach clean – LOVE LOVE LOVE this line. So ‘yes’ I can feel the wave and smell the ocean and clarity |
pixelated human being – I wanna be one! |
don’t hide your light under a bushel… even if it is just a flashlight beam looking for the way XO
First things first…You, Miz Laurie, are the most pixelated person I know ( isn’t that such a fantastic word?) I was so impressed by your comments that I felt compelled to read my post again to see if it was as descriptive as you said!
Thanks for your endorsement. It really makes me read with a fresh perspective.
Hi Colleen,
Don’t change; I read all your blogs,
and even though I may not comment every time,
I always enjoy reading your take on life and adventure,
family topic, friends, philosophical ideas.
Absolutely lovely and insightful.
Laurie,
Thanks for your feedback and for being such a faithful reader.
I’m so thankful to be able to share my thoughts with a kindred spirit.
Hey Colleen, There is absolutely nothing wrong with your grey matter. You are a wonderfully amazing and pixilated human being. Keep up this great blog and writing ( and I do mean it!) so others can continue to enjoy an adventurous life vicariously. Great to hear from you.
Judy,
I love being called a pixilated human being. I am stealing that line!
From now on, I will think of myself as a myriad of colourful dots that combine to make a wacky whole.
Bless you for that word image.
You’re welcome Colleen. and as you no doubt know in ancient times before rapid fire technology ‘pixilated’ also meant ‘amusingly eccentric’. You capture both interpretations–a win win for you.
Thank you for giving me the benefit of this knowledge, but I, in fact, had no idea it also meant amusingly eccentric. Now I love the word even more. Bless you!