Speed

I had a freak accident recently, a week or so prior to Christmas, slipping suddenly when walking and badly twisting one of my ankles while traversing a path I’ve walked hundreds of times.  I wasn’t rushing, nothing was obstructing my way, nothing had been spilt on the surface.  As I struggled to right myself my mind was instantly calibrating what had happened, and why.  Though caught by surprise because it happened so fast, thoughts raced through my mind as a feeling of intentionality gripped me.

I have recently been advised to slow down, to take something off my plate.  While age does play a part in slowing one down, my mind is as active now as it was when I was a young girl; that will never slow down.  But it’s not about that.  As we run out of time it’s about pursuing those things that are meaningful, those things that are important, those things that will make a difference.  I remember being told many years ago that as we age or mature, our reading choices should also become more selective, so too our interests; this accident has reinforced that.

As I slowly hobbled along afterward with my ankle strapped for the days that followed, I felt that life had intentionally made me stop, that it had made me slow down on purpose.  I moved slowly among crowds of people constantly rushing past me, amidst the excitement and intensity of pre-Christmas shopping, and I saw how oblivious they were to the maelstrom of life, to their identification with it as I had been, until I had quite literally been pulled from it.

It was shocking to experience this, to feel it so powerfully, and I understood the lesson being taught; that one must be mindful at all times of where one is within oneself.  It is fitting that this year of my life end with this teaching lesson, with the strong reminder to remember what is important, what is meaningful, and to not get lost along the way.  The teaching has always been this; be in the world, but not of it.