Life in real time
How many times have you taken a walk, scented the air and absorbed the benefit of an afternoon’s vitamin D? More than you could count, right? But when have you ever paid attention to the small detail, the minutia that surrounds you as you mosey along?
Hardly ever, I’m afraid. We’re a straight up, straight-ahead society, kids. We’re trained not to sweat the small stuff and urged it’s no good to do it anyway.
The goal is efficiency to the max: bigger and better, new and improved, greater than the sum of the parts. We put the blinders on and rush toward a goal that’s ill defined at best and simply non-existent at worst.
I’m no different than anyone else. It’d be great to proclaim that my personal philosophy is based on Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,� but I’d be lying if I said so.
I worry constantly and am not happy until the job’s done. It’s odd, too, because once one edition is put to bed another begins, which may beg the question of any long-standing contentment.
I’m trying to get over it. Still, this business is as unforgiving as the deadlines that govern it and it’s easy to get sucked in. Once you’re in the Mixmaster, one thing blurs into the next and life breezes by.
That’s why a short walk with our big boy last weekend was a real boon. Toddlers could care less about how fast and what’s next. Their legs are short, their pace leisurely if not pokey, and everything that catches their eye becomes a fascination.
We had started out going to the mailbox for the flyers and somehow wound up on a path that led into the woods. We toed mushroom caps, stripped weeds of their various spores and entreated our cat to follow us (even though he was in the house, curled up and none the wiser concerning our trek).
We found pinecones of all sizes and tucked them away. Yellow leaves (since yellow is his favourite colour) filled our pockets and a couple of twigs served very nicely as walking sticks.
Pine needles were a constant source of interest and a goodly sample was collected by the time we returned home. We moved alternately using the popular horsie-trot, exaggerated run, youthful meander and hand-held stroll.
Birds sang; chipmunks burred. I suggested a high alertness for animals of all kinds and we paused every now and then when we thought a creature was proximate.
As the journey unfolded, I relaxed incrementally as our little man introduced me for the hundredth time to the way in which he relates to his world. It’s a shame I forget so easily the lessons, and it’s nice, too, that he reminds me so naturally.
If only all learning were as pleasant and successful. Things have been pretty busy here at work and I cherished that adventure with him. Not just for the so-called quality father/son time, but also to revisit those small, sweet notions that get trampled in the day-to-day insensibility we call real life.
Which is more real? I’m sure I don’t even have to go there. You and I both know the answer to that.
