Year of Slow

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Southeastern Iceland

A year ago, I started sneezing every 5 minutes and went through a box of tissues in 4 hours.

19 January 2022, I scored a double red line on a Covid-19 test and wound up in a mandated 10-day quarantine. I will never forget the worst sore throat I’ve ever experienced [including my tonsillectomy] and feeling like every breath was through hot glass shards. Joints like I was moving through wet gritty sand. The fatigue. Disappointment. Body slowed down to a halt.

Overnight, I went from a decade-long jet-setting pace of 34 plans each day to hardly having strength to collect the iced coffee gifts graciously left outside by The Man In The Red Truck from his welfare visits.

A year later he still brings me iced coffee and a year later, I’m still slowed down.

One thing learned from my Covid-19 experience was the value of taking a breath. An actual needed-for-life breath and a metaphorical pause-in-existence breath. It took nearly 2 months before I wasn’t drudging through the day and a year later I still don’t feel like moving at Spaceball I’s ludicrous speed.

I was grateful to return to collecting passport stamps in 2022 - but slower and no longer feeling the need to be at the center of every point of action. Existing in new spaces rather than excavating them.

Savoring locations instead of flying through them. Parks and beaches, statues and architecture, transit rides, coffee cups and pints, friendships and AirBnB hosts. Sunrises. Standing on a glacier, in a town full of consonants, watching the Northern Lights. Holding the leaves of the Tree of Life. Meandering in the rain to a bus kiosk in Bavaria. Drifting in the ocean under the Equatorial Sun. Chomping down hangover cure toasties across from the London Eye.

Time remains my idea of the most valuable gift but now recognizing the peace that comes through time. Peace. The gift I most prayed to receive since my early 20s.

Peace from those two red lines on my Covid-19 test? I guess you could say, but the Japanese Legend of the Red String says each life is connected to another by a single red thread. Something out from our heart through our hands and into the hands and heart of another. Journeys connected in this red thread as we choose to weave, knot, and loop the strand. Fate. Destiny. What is meant for us is already connected to us and we will find it on our pilgrimage through this life.

A map full of destinations.

People. Experiences.

The togetherness of it all.

I feel "good different" than a year ago, content with the peace of having slowed down. Energy not to ask a million questions or seek deeper meanings. Energy not to research or refine. Energy to embrace the light and follow the lines. Energy to manifest and weave the threads. Energy to maintain peace.

Following lines and watching the map unfold.

Manifesting what’s on the way.

No longer seeking but living in time.

To the question, “Where will you travel next?"

I’m happy to answer, “I don’t know…”

Sláinte.

Labyrinth Photo, London