Going Slow

time warps, pause and play, and letting fast and slow worlds collide

Sometimes I feel like I am caught between time warps. The world around me is moving at lightening speed, and I am so slow. I sit before the blinking cursor, waiting for my thoughts to materialize into coherent sentences while a time-lapse movie of a family in motion fills the frame around me.

My body is slowing down. I feel it powering down into conserve-energy-mode as I prepare to bring another baby into this world. I have very little fight left in me to protest. My body says rest, and I cast a wistful glance around the house. I walk, in slow motion, to my bedroom, while all around me people are talking and laughing and fighting and crying, making things, making meals, making messes that will have multiplied by the time my hour-nap is done. I will wake up, take up my sword of order, whack off the arm of the dirty-dishes-monster, only to find its staggering regenerative power. Now there are three more, and it is time to make supper.

Going slow is soooooo hard. The limits of the body can be so infuriating. And in this season of little ones who need me every waking moment—my physical body, my mind, my words, my attention, my help, my strength, my comfort, my sympathy, my vision, my preparation, my intuition, my planning, my brain, my heart, my precious time and energy—I don’t want to go slow. I want to go fast.

I want to hit the pause button on the background and let that woman at the desk write her words. I want her to finish, stand up and walk calmly, even gracefully through a house of paused children, step into the kitchen, hit play on an audiobook, and watch her happily clean that kitchen till it sparkles. I want to see her move through one room of the house at a time, putting everything in order. I want her to take a break and sit down with a cup of tea at the kitchen table, open journal before her, and watch her scribble out one hundred lists about the year ahead. Goals and plans, ideas and schedules, prayers and visions. I want to see her get things completely done.

But this isn’t going to happen.

Life is moving too fast around me to catch up with those life-on-pause ideals. My only option, in this season, is to go slow.

So go slow, I tell myself.

Go even slower.

Slow it down to the heartbeat and remember that you are alive.

Hit pause again, but this time, don’t walk past the people you love in order to get to some future version of yourself where you can sit down and enjoy them. Go slower. Get down on your knees, (Go ahead, take all the time you need.), and sit in front of your four-year-old son. He is still, suspended in time. Look at his eyes. Go deep into them. Look as far you can see. Get lost in time there.

When you get up, take your time, and look from one face to another. Don’t just look. Really see. The eyes, the hair, the faces, alive with still, but animated expression. The hands, frozen, but busy at work—drawing, stirring, animating speech, playing a board game, building with blocks, sewing at the kitchen table, braiding hair, holding a baby, playing the piano. The beautiful bodies, growing, changing, becoming… Did you ever think that something so beautiful, so full energy and possibility, so spilling-over with unstoppable momentum could rush out of your slowly-moving life?

Now, I tell myself, hit the play button and let it all come back to life.

Enter into it. Let fast and slow worlds collide. Let mess and order live together. Let dreams and visions coexist with reality and the unexpected. Let energetic little children live with slow mamas. Let time move as it must—fast and slow, season by season. But let our hearts continue beating. And as often as they are able, let them beat in perfect synchronization a rhythm that binds our worlds together.

Memory of playing piano with Heidi Wren on the piano when she was four years old from my sketchbook.

Dear friends,

Sending love and hopes for a beautiful new year that moves at just the right speed for you to live it with grace, gratitude, and peace.

I had hopes to put together a looking-back at the last year post last week, but the flu threw all of our plans into the void. (I am so thankful that everyone is on the mend and that we are getting some normal days around here again. I feel myself desperately wanting to snap back into those daily rhythms that hold us all together.) I would like to quietly mention that being here on substack has been such a delight to me. Thank you so much for opening up my letters each week, and for your generous support which has truly changed my life this year.

With love,
Mackenzie

From the Family Archive:

There will be a time for tea and coffee
There will be a time for quiet cafes
There will be a time for reading and writing
And dreaming the day away
But now is the time of pitter patter
And now is the time of what’s the matter
Let me kiss you, make it better
Now is the time of sweet, soft kisses
Now is the time every mother misses
Over coffee in a quiet cafe

*A recording from 14 years ago, when we had two babies. We are now expecting our ninth. Talk about a time warp! But the message of the song still gets me.

From the Podcast:

Rhythms: Making Space for Beauty in Everyday Life (Podcast #22)

Life doesn’t slow down. Every day there is an inexhaustible to-do list waiting for me. There are needs and questions pressing in–about homeschool, health, children’s needs, creative projects, this house, community, adventure, prayers and plans for the future… One thing I have learned in my life is that I have to create rhythms for myself that bring joy, peace, and tune me in to the beauty of everyday life. It is too easy to get swept up in the overwhelm and not enjoy the simple moments of day by day. January always makes me feel like making lists, reorganizing our family schedules, reevaluating the vision and rhythms of my days, weeks, months, and year. In this podcast episode, I share a few of the rhythms that help me, even in a busy, needs-never-stop-life, to feel centered and connected to the beauty the everyday.

(Recorded Jan. 2022)