An Unexpected Slow Down

Sometimes I need to follow my own advice

I’m finally following my own advice.

I’m sitting in a lawn chair on our deck with my right leg propped up on a bistro chair. Dusk slowly creeps in and our string lights start to glow. The cicadas of summer have moved in and their chorus keeps me company as I sit and take a sip of red wine from Pay’s d’Oc. Sadie, the dog, lays at my feet, surveying her queendom for errant squirrels. It’s a perfect summer night with a hint of cooler air.

Over the years that I’ve been writing, I often mention how important it is to stop and notice the landscape, take the time to just be and find ways to create the good life. And I do these things daily. But this week, I decided to focus on them even more. It goes back to last Thursday, when I was in the middle of my yoga practice and I heard a loud sound. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that it was coming from my knee. After a few minutes of yoga and movement (I now follow the advice of MICE: move, ice, elevate, compress), I slowly got up from the floor and knew that I needed to rest and elevate and ice my knee.

So, this past week, I followed my own advice. Periods of rest followed periods of activity. I read, watched baseball, sat on the front porch and looked on as life moved around me. My daily walk slowed down to the rhythm of my knee so I took in the tiger swallowtails and monarchs flitting through the lavender bee balm, the goldfinches flying around the purple thistles, the first leaf turning. My yoga became a time of meditation, breathing and stretching. And the deadlines and pressures that I sometimes impose on myself melted away.

What does the good life look like from a position of rest? It follows the flight of birds, the billowing clouds, the sound of cicadas. It focuses on gratitude for the simple things: a bowl of ice cream on a sweltering day, a cool ice pack on a sore knee, a couch where I can put my feet up. It accepts the current circumstances and makes the most of them. It acknowledges that I can’t do it all myself and allows the help of others in my community.

This past week, despite a bum knee, I experienced the good life. It continues around us even in the midst of chaos and pain and loss. And it’s the good that I want to live in this one life I have.