Interesting premise for both this week and next, so I shall tie them together - 'Fast' and 'Slow," a dichotomy.
I sometimes find myself envying the slower pace of days gone by, shown to us in so many ways as idyllic and pastoral - sitting on the front porch snapping beans, fishing in a nearby stream, or taking the buggy out to go visiting. All quieter activities than rush hour or the supermarket, but I've observed that there was really very little 'slow" about that way of life.
There are certainly a variety of reasons for the phrase "Grandma worked her fingers to the bone" or tales of Grandpa working the farm until weeks before his death: if they hadn't, they wouldn't have kept the roof over their heads of food upon the table. Everything that needed doing was done by hand and by manual labor, with manual tools and the help of family and close friends. There used to be a great plenty of hurrying to get where one was going, to the next task, to prevent catastrophe (I'm thinking of the Locust Plague in Little House on the Prairie).
Farms took shape as they were purchased often side by side by brothers and then passed to their sons, often with parcels sold or traded back and forth or in at least one case in my family, an untimely death which brought the entire family together in order to pool resources to pay off the taxes. All this to say that none of this living was 'fast' or quick. One waited for the best planting and the best harvesting, tending slowly to both crops and growing children. Walks to school were often long and waits for news or trips to town were waited for with anticipation.
I've wondered frequently what our world would be like with some additional slowness. Fast. A race to the finish. Being first to ... fill in the blank with whichever activity comes to mind. These phrases are frequent in our media and in our own heads. I am no exception but am grateful for how the pandemic has forced us to take stock of what's important. My life hasn't changed in huge ways, and I didn't take up bread baking (my mom does that!) but I do try to be more mindful about what is taking up my time. Blogging, for instance. This is my third stab at this particular entry, so I'm feeling behind and slow, but then I'm going to post it to one of the fastest places on Earth - social media, which has an attention span of 15 seconds?
I don't think I've made a clear case, and perhaps that not my purpose, But our great-grandparents had both fast and slow, and so do we. I think we need both.
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