Learning to Slow Down
“Solitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.” Katrina Kennison When I was a kid playgrounds had merry-go-rounds where you held onto a bar, ran around in a circle to get up speed, then jumped up on the spinner where you sat in a dizzying state as the wheel slowed down. You couldn't do much more than hold on. The point of the ride, was to do it over and over again, letting each spin fill you with a weird sense of freedom. Especially if an adult or big kid was doing the spinning. There were also times, as in life, you'd fall, legs splayed out behind you caught in the rut beneath the wheel, unless or until you let go of the bar. Then you limped home for a combo treatment of stinging, red mecuricome and a chocolate chip cookie. All of us have spent time on that metaphorical merry go round. Either by our own choosing or at the hands of a mad twirler with no sense that things were beginnin...