Chronic Urgency-- Let It Go

Yesterday, while in a flurry of unfocused, superfluous activity I asked myself, “What if you were not in such a hurry? How would it feel if you took your time?” I guaranteed myself it would be a much different existence. So I took a deep breath, my first line of defense in every stressful situation, and it was validated once again that breath is a potent tool for good.

I witness many who, along with me, suffer from this affliction I call— Chronic Urgency— the self-imposed demand that everything must get done sooner than we are actually capable of doing it, and there can be nothing left hanging. I got news for all of us— there are always things left hanging. It’s part of the package. Ironically the Chronic Urgency mindset means very little ever gets done well, as the surging energy goes into the immanency rather than the holistic completion of whatever task is at hand. So take a breath right now, and know it will all get done— eventually.

Tricia

Excuse to Stay Still

The scene is lightening, the sun shows as a subtle yet brilliant white disk glowing through the diffusing gray clouds, perhaps an evil attempt to get me moving— but I will resist until there is certainty that the clouds have emptied and are ready to break apart showing me the other side of existence. The clouds once again thicken and I am, for the time being, safe in my stillness. 

Tricia, 4 2022

Rebecca Solnit on Books

Art Source: Anon

Dear Readers,

Nearly every book has the same architecture — cover, spine, pages — but you open them onto worlds and gifts far beyond what paper and ink are, and on the inside they are every shape and power. Some books are toolkits you take up to fix things, from the most practical to the most mysterious, from your house to your heart, or to make things, from cakes to ships. Some books are wings. Some are horses that run away with you. Some are parties to which you are invited, full of friends who are there even when you have no friends. In some books you meet one remarkable person; in others a whole group or even a culture. Some books are medicine, bitter but clarifying. Some books are puzzles, mazes, tangles, jungles. Some long books are journeys, and at the end you are not the same person you were at the beginning. Some are handheld lights you can shine on almost anything.

The books of my childhood were bricks, not for throwing but for building. I piled the books around me for protection and withdrew inside their battlements, building a tower in which I escaped my unhappy circumstances. There I lived for many years, in love with books, taking refuge in books, learning from books a strange data-rich out-of-date version of what it means to be human. Books gave me refuge. Or I built refuge out of them, out of these books that were both bricks and magical spells, protective spells I spun around myself. They can be doorways and ships and fortresses for anyone who loves them.

And I grew up to write books, as I’d hoped, so I know that each of them is a gift a writer made for strangers, a gift I’ve given a few times and received so many times, every day since I was six.

Rebecca Solnit