Slow Living has been on my mind lately. Rhythm. Structure. How we fill our days.
It’s been raining non stop so our recent trail hike was such a godsend. I feel like slow living and time outdoors go hand in hand. The worries of the world some how dim in the quiet solitude of the forest.
Slow Living is a movement that I keep hearing about. It overlaps with the ideas of minimalism, a homemade life or home-grown life, and living more mindfully. I just finished Seeking Slow by Melanie Barnes and now I’ve been googling around for more books, blogs and podcasts on the subject. The more I read the more slow living resonates with me.
I see slow living as a kind of pushback on the culture of hyper busyness we live in. A culture of constant to do lists and getting shit done. A culture of the ideal worker who works 80 hours a week and has no life. A culture in which free time or downtime is shunned and over-stuffed calendars lauded. It’s no wonder the feeling of time poverty is real.
It’s something most of us deal with every day, often without realizing it’s there: a feeling of time scarcity. We know it well: the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it all. This is true not only of work — where we have too many projects, meetings, emails, admin tasks, calls, requests, messages — but also of our personal lives. We want to exercise, eat well, meditate, learn something cool, travel, go out with friends, spend time in solitude, go for hikes, read a million books, take care of finances and errands, keep up with podcasts and news and interesting online content and our loved ones on social networks and fascinating people on social media, while finding space for contemplation and quiet. Whew. — Leo Babauta, author of Zen Habits
So, what exactly is slow living? It means different things to different people. To me it means understanding that busyness is a choice. It means defining what’s essential and most important to you and then prioritizing those things. As with minimalism it means less is more, be it physical things or obligations on your calendar. It means living more mindfully, being present in your life. It means getting outside in nature, connecting with people we care about, and creating space to breathe in your life, because we all need downtime in which to dream in. It means a greater connection to our food, how it’s made and where it comes from- think homemade, clean eating and un-processed foods. Family meals when possible.
The recent coronona virus pandemic has forced us all to slow down in a way. If we’re all at home and not rushing around then we are all less busy. Or arguably busier at home (working and homeschooling ). Busyness has become almost an American status symbol these days. Ask someone how they are doing and a common response is, “Great, just really, really busy.” But busy doesn’t necessarily equal important.
I am, at times, rather type A. I’m a list maker and goal oriented. I’m always trying to check off that never ending to do list. But I started wondering. Will I reach the end of my life some day and feel like all I did was accomplish stuff instead of live? Did I spend my life checking off a never ending to do list and saying yes to too many invitations while thereby ignoring the amazing weather outside, my own inner longings or my children’s plea to play? Was I ever really present in my own life or did I just spend it skimming the surface of unimportant matters? A chilling thought.
As Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Think about it. How do you spend your time really? Do you watch hours of news or TV? Do you fall into the black hole or internet surfing, social media or mindlessly order more shit on Amazon you probably don’t really need? Do you feel you are forever running errands? Attending a charity or function a friend guilted you into attending but that doesn’t really resonate with you?
Maybe, sometimes, finally getting around to responding to a mass chain of texts from friends or three-day-old voicemails can feel like a time-sucking chore; when all you want to do is lie down and rest or tackle that dream you never have time for. (Love you guys but sometimes it really does take me three days to listen to my voicemail!)
I frequently worry that being productive is the surest way to lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but being absent from ourselves, mistaking the doing for the being. — Maria Popover, Author of Brain Pickings, An Inventory of the Meaningful Life.
If I’m always “productive” then when do I have time to dream, write, create? Or tackle a longed for project that seems perpetually on back-burner in favor of laundry, school emails and the stack of magazines awaiting input into Catalogue Choice so I can finally be rid of an over-stuffed mailbox, filled with mail I don’t want which then clutters my recycle bin.
I love what the author of Becoming Minimalist ,Joshua Becker, has to say on the matter, that “Busyness is, at its core, about misplaced priorities”. If we are forever busy then we are ignoring our inner voice. Speed then becomes a form of denial. It’s also a choice. I am choosing to fold laundry while the kids nap when I could be writing my next post for this blog or revising my half-written book I haven’t had time to touch in years.
So more and more I ask myself, what is truly essential today? What has to be done today? Then I do that one thing and then spend the rest of my free time on things I want to do. Which, sadly, as a mom of two toddlers isn’t much time at all.
I get at best two hours of me time a day while the kids have quiet time. So this time is insanely precious to me. I used to think it wasn’t possibly enough time to write or tackle a creative project. But the reality is that the ideal time simply doesn’t exist. You’ve got to work with what you have. Sure my flow is constantly interrupted, and I wish I could just keep going, follow the flow. But then the kids wake up and I have to shelf it to that evening or the next day; flow interrupted. So it may take 3-4 days to write what could otherwise be written in an afternoon. But if you love something you make it work, you fit it in when you can, knowing that the ideal time will never present itself.
So today, for example, I had to respond to my CPA and upload a document. The rest could wait, or as my sister would say, “That’s just not a priority right now”. It’s a subtle mind shift. It doesn’t mean you won’t get to the other things, it just means that they just aren’t a priority today. Dishes and laundry be damned I’m writing!
A fast approach tends to be a superficial one, but when you slow down you begin to engage more deeply with whatever it is you’re doing. You’re also forced to confront what’s happening inside you – which is one of the reasons why I think we find it so hard to slow down. Speed becomes a form of denial. It’s a way of running away from those more deep, tangled problems. Instead of focusing on questions like who am I, and what is my role here, it all becomes a superficial to-do list. — Carl Honoré
The social distancing and shelter at home going on right now, due to the Corona Virus, has brought all of this even more to the forefront for me. Given that we’re all at home and being forced to basically slow down. I wanted to see this as an opportunity to really practice slow living. To dive deeper into why this movement appeals to me, what my values are, and as one podcast, recommends, create my own slow living manifesto.
Because what I realized is that when I was forced to slow down with this whole shelter at home thing I went a little crazy. I felt a little lost and I felt a lot less busy. Cast adrift really. So, when you strip away the busy, you are then left with the inner self you’ve long ignored. There’s a reason meditation is so hard for many. Sitting still and quietly with yourself is NOT easy.
We’re now in week two of social distancing and last night Harris County was told to shelter in place. Staying in has now become the new going out.
Spring Break included, this will be the third week my kids have been out of school. Both kids are in preschool two days a week. Liam (age 4) and Scarlett (age 2). Preschool adds structure to our week, allows them to learn social skills, and gives me, as mom, some much needed self-care time (read: exercise) or time to work on my small business.
As of now school is slated to be out for another three weeks due to the virus, putting us through mid-April but who’s to say how long this will really go on for?
Kids, and adults for that matter, thrive on structure and routine. So, it feels as though the rug has been pulled out from under us. I was on such a good routine of wellness, clean eating and exercise. A healthy balance of family and small business to dos. Now we’re all thrown for a loop and floundering to find stability. But was it really a healthy balance? Because I was, in fact, always busy.
I think the hardest part has been the forced isolation. There’s a reason they tell moms, especially new ones, to get out. Cabin fever and postpartum depression are real. A sad reality of all this forced sequestering and shelter at home may cause a rise in anxiety and depression. ABC news wrote an article about it. Read it here.
I personally had some serious social withdrawal last week. Parks closed, restaurants closed, my gyms closed and you even started to feel like playdates were a bad idea. Plus, it rained ALL WEEK LONG. The kids were acting up, tantrums reached an all- time high and my mom-stress went through the roof. I even doubted whether I liked being a mom or not. All I felt was a desire to escape my reality of whining children. Our tots, no doubt picking up on our emotional temperature, were melting down ALL THE TIME. It was a really rough week to say the least. I felt completely adrift. Untethered from everything that had been grounding me.
But life never keeps me down for long, I rise above whatever waves come crashing down upon me… eventually- a recession, a flood, a pandemic, another likely recession… I am stronger than that. Because what doesn’t break you can give you pause and make you think. Reevaluate your life even.
The game changer for me was something I began to think about. Structure. Or the lack of it in the wake of Covid-19 and sequestering at home.
Our normal routines and structures had all been whisked away from us- school, playdates, my spin/yoga/Barre Method classes, park visits, dinning out, date nights, girls night out, even something as simple as getting your nails done. Gone. So how could I create a sense of structure for us at home? A sense of occasion or something to look forward to? How could I build a routine that would allow us to slow down yet add meaning and, hopefully, keep us all a bit saner?
We have an art room, a dream of a playroom, basically an outdoor classroom outside, nature preserves and forested trails nearby to boot. So, what the heck was I complaining about? So many people have it SO much worse than I do. Unemployment is real in the wake of Covid-19 and the local Houston economy, being tied to oil, is suffering from oil’s all-time lows. We’ve been doing a ton of process art and playing outside of course but I wanted something that would add more structure or intentionality to each day.
It was time to create a plan and stop whining, myself. I decided that time in the fresh air is ABSOLUTELY paramount for our well-being. That said, simply being in the backyard, as I discovered, doesn’t provide enough of a nature fix. For that we need true forest bathing. So, weather permitting, we spend mornings in the forest every chance we get. Taking Free Forest School to heart and making it our classroom. Discovering inch worms, spider webs, throwing rocks in the creek, watching busy ant hills in action, learning how to identify poison ivy and snacking upon a blanket of pine needles beneath the quiet calm of the forest canopy. It’s amazing how this creates a palpable mood shift in myself and the children. Everyone comes home transformed.
The kids school recently started providing activity kits for us to pickup weekly, based on whatever the lesson would have been for that week. It’s handful of activities so now we have fun building off of them. Space was this week so in addition to what the teachers provided we made galaxy spin art. We also plan to making astronaut Neapolitan freeze-dried ice cream (I always thought space ice cream was the coolest when I was a kid).
Interestingly, just adding forest trips and running by the school to pick up our activity packs creates such a sense of excitement and something to look forward to. Just getting out. So, then I started thinking how can we support local businesses we love who are hurting? So now we get fresh green juice or bubble tea a few times a week. Sometimes you just need to get in the car and go somewhere.
So, structure that’s been a revelation but also acceptance and how I choose to view this situation. For me personally It’s become a lesson in slow living, in appreciating all that you have and all that you’ve taken for granted.
So, we’re looking to stay positive, discover inspiration and be cozy and creative at home. I am lucky that my kids are young and we aren’t faced with the fear of them falling behind in school. Just a fear of how to stay sane.
Being creative at home might mean tackling home projects- we finally cleaned out the garage, because hubs needs a place to do CrossFit at home. We planted an herb garden and flower garden and bought a patio table so we can dine al fresco. I’ve also been on a baking frenzy having tackled two kinds of shortbread cooked for afternoon snack, honey whole wheat and cinnamon raisin bread and just this morning waffles.
Baking from scratch took on new meaning this week when the grocery store had a run on butter. I asked Instacart for cream as a replacement, thinking heck let’s just make some butter! You know, got lemons, make lemonade!
So, these waffles I made this morning were not just any waffles but Liège waffles, or Belgium’s superior waffle. Otherwise known as the best waffles I’ve ever had in my life! See recipe below. Turns out that these waffles are made with yeast (yet another hard to find commodity right now). You let the dough rise and puff up for 1-2 hours and then, at the last minute, you fold in some pearl sugar.
Pearl sugar? Yep, it’s a specialty sugar popular in Europe where the sugar crystals are compressed together creating large nibs of sugar that will not melt in baking. I didn’t have this special sugar and wasn’t going to let it stop me from waffle nirvana so I used coarse grain organic cane sugar instead (using 1/2 C. instead of the 1 C. pearl sugar the recipe calls for. It means that you get a lovely crisp crust on the waffle. These brioche-like waffles transcend toppings and adornments. Seriously No butter or syrup needed at all. They are TO DIE FOR all on their own!
The perfect waffle maker? After much research I got this All-Clad one. My only complaint so far is that it’s not easy to clean. A bit of a pain really especially when crystalized sugar is involved because the grills don’t come out.
Waffles aside, this slow living is going to be a journey for me. I’ve started working on my slow living manifesto to help me get to the root of why I want to slow down and live with more intention, which is always a good idea before tackling the how of living slowly. For more on creating your own slow living manifesto check out this podcast and her download.
But I’m off to a good start. Forest bathing and nature walks whenever the weather permits, from scratch baking at home and finding ways the kids and I can connect and create at home. Who knows, hubs and I may even try some family board games and step away from our recent pandemic-induced Netflix binge.
It’s ironic. The Corona Virus is horrible, wreaking havoc on the economy, businesses, job security and health- both mental and physical. But I try to find the silver lining in any bad situation. For me it’s this: since social distancing and sheltering at home, I’ve never heard so many kids playing in their backyards. Never seen so many kids on bikes or teens on nature walks or out sun bathing in their yards. Never seen so many people enjoying the local nature preserve and it’s forested dirt trails. Never seen so many families kicking it 50’s style on their back porches to BBQ dinner.
Maybe America needed a wakeup call. Slow the f*** down people. Step away from the computer, TV, and your smartphone and maybe do something simple and beautiful for once like watch the sunset or play a board game. Connect with those you love and get back to what really matters. Not money. Not job title. Not the size of your house or the brand of your car. Because, if the recent run on groceries should teach us anything it’s that all the money in the world still won’t buy you toilet paper if there is NO TOILET PAPER to be had. Who knew the great equalizer was Toilet paper all along!
So, busy is not all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t be all rush and no life. But most importantly, don’t let busy be your distraction from actually living. Get outside. Embrace the concept of nature bathing to allow your mind rest, recovery and inspiration. Most of all live the life that’s within you to live. Don’t let your to do list or your social calendar hijack your life and dictate it for you.
It’s a choice. Choose to honor what really matters to you and then put that first. Every day.
From my heart to your,
~RHL
Liege Waffles
(Best Waffles I’ve Ever Had In My Life!)
INGREDIENTS
- 1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 1 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1/3 cup lukewarm water
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing
- 1 cup Belgian pearl sugar (or 1/2 C. Organic Cane Sugar)
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a small bowl, whisk the brown sugar and yeast into the lukewarm water and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, mix the flour with the salt. Pour in yeast. Mix at medium speed for about 1 minute.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for 20 seconds between each.
- Mix in the vanilla with the 1 cup of melted butter. With the mixer at medium-low, gradually mix in the butter until smooth.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and let the batter rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.
- Stir the pearl sugar or regular sugar into the risen batter. Cover again and let rest for 15 minutes. ( or skip the rest and move on)
- Preheat a Belgian waffle iron and brush it with melted butter or canola oil. Pour about 2-3 TB into each square.
- Follow your waffle maker’s instructions on cooking time.
