My habit for years has been to sign emails to colleagues and acquaintances with the phrase “Best, Barbara.” I type fast, and usually accurately, but in the last few weeks I’ve been startled to see appearing on my screen the sign-off “Beset, Barbara.”
In some ways I do feel beset: by too much work, and too much challenge in finding time for family, friends, books, films, and quiet reflection. I’m hardly alone in this sense that it takes incredible energy just to resist being engulfed by culture’s great forces. It’s become thoroughly unremarkable to feel stoop-shouldered with work, glassy-eyed from the assault of information’s flow through electronic outlets, and snared, if only momentarily, by the fast-moving consumer currents in which last year’s big screen TV or iPod Touch suddenly goes lame alongside a 3D TV or Nano.
When “beset” threatens to overwhelm, I head for the sunroom in our house. Just walking in, seeing my hundreds of books on their cherrywood shelves, the cats in various degrees of stupor soaking up sun-shafts, and no technology whatsoever, allows my ribcage expand and my heart rate to slow. The glass doors open onto the now-overgrown summer garden, and the surrounding territory of Our Nemesis The Groundhog and song-making yardbirds.
Many of us may seek micro-escapes like this, fixing ourselves to a spot in our home or yard, or in a nearby park or beach, that invites us to think, read, talk with others, or do something old-fashioned and creative with our hands. In such a place, our vision may clear long enough to daydream a fuller resistance to the prevailing hamster wheel. At such times, a good book to have is Andy Couturier’s A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance.
more
No comments:
Post a Comment