It was about a month ago, maybe, when T and I were having a spate of drawn-out, late-night conversations about the direction of our lives, that I decided to try to slow down a little and get more sleep. Slowing down isn't my nature, and sleep is definitely no the first thing I think of when night folds the house in darkness and lamplight spills across my desk. Instead, late night hours are the ones I long for; time spent working without interruption; the windows open and a soft rain falling on stirring leaves until well after midnight. But as we talked and talked, it dawned on me that maybe even though I'm terrified of slowing down, I'd reached the point of overdrawn. And though admitting this felt like admitting weakness, it also felt like a necessity, like some kind of survival mechanism kicking in. And so I agreed that maybe, possibly, a little more sleep and a slight slowing of the pace might be a good thing to experiment with, and so unofficially I began. Fewer late nights. Sleeping just a bit longer. Aiming for just one thing at a time. And above all else, making the weekends, and Saturday in particular, slow on purpose. Gluten free muffins made from scratch in the morning with plenty of coffee and bacon, and then all of us sitting around reading at the table: Richard Scary, and Spider Magazine and the New York Times, and then moving toward the day without rushing or an agenda, and coming back together frequently for snacks and snuggles and couch time in the evening when we could all hear first of the season's crickets making their debut. That's what today brought: the ease of slowness, and also the reminder that summer will be ending soon. Just another month of ripe golden days, and then school and autumn. Reason enough to slow down for a day, and let the time slide by like the skin off a sun ripened peach, the juice making our fingers sweet.
PS: I just love, love, love how many of you are joining me. It's an excuse to pop over to your blogs regularly and to see what the small corners of your world look like day to day!