slow and steady, or fast and furious?

I recently went to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden on a rainy Portland Saturday with a good friend of mine. As we were wandering, I saw this little placard credited to Lao Zhu: “nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” It lit something within me.

If you’ve known me for long, you know I despise summer. It’s my least favorite of the seasons. I hate the heat, I hate how much the sun shines, but mostly, I hate how busy everyone always is. It feels so frantic to me that I often wonder if we’re actually having fun, or if we’re just checking the boxes of what summer “should” be.

I purposely move more slowly in summer. Yes, a lot of that is because I cannot stand being hot, but also, I cannot stand being busy just because. 

I have also seen a rather large uptick in people coming to see me in the clinic recently because they spent all day gardening and messed up their back. And their knees. And their shoulders. And now they can’t sleep. You don’t say? Huh…wonder why that is?

All snarkiness aside: have you ever considered pacing yourself? Have you considered setting a timer for 30 minutes while you’re outside so that you are reminded to get up, stretch out that back and grab a drink of water?

Yes, I know it might wreck your flow. Yes, I know it might mean that you don’t get all of that weeding or planting done that day. But, so what? And I say this as someone who loves to grow things. I know we have such a short, precious growing season here. I know we need to maximize our growing time as much as possible. But what if, we took a page out of Lao Zhu’s book and instead of frantically hurrying to get everything done right this second, or maximize our productivity, we took a beat to actually take care of our bodies that do so much for us and trust the fact that it will all get done? And if it doesn’t get done, it's not really the end of the world. What if, instead of trying to pack it all in this summer, we instead said no to one or two things each month so that we had time to sit with loved ones and just enjoy the birds in the trees with nothing nagging at us? 

What if the highlight reel of your summer was the quiet moments spent watching the sunset over the lake? Or cutting the flowers to put on your dining table? What would happen if we got back to a slightly more boring life, full of regular moments that just might be really profound in their simplicity?

What if you managed to do it all this summer by not doing much?

Just know, I’ve got needles for you when that extra 10 minutes of weeding that one patch turns into two hours and you can’t stand up straight. Because, let’s be real, most of us are still going to do the things.