A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Summer is for colors! The other day I saw Tieka wear a cute mint and mustard combo and was inspired to style my own mint and mustard look. Summer's been going strong in Tacoma, but it looks like next week it's going to cool back down. It's been nice to be able to wear truly summery outfits before the clouds decided to roll in and stay for a while. I still haven't had an opportunity to wear my polka dot bathing suit to the beach or lake, and I'm dying to take it out for a spin before summer dies out. Though, maybe I'll have to suck it up and wait for a winter vacation to warmer climes to don it.
Life is constant change. But it seems like all we try to do is get comfortable, feel safe... and isn't it kind of impossible to feel comfortable and safe while everything around us is constantly changing? There are just those few anchors that we can hold on to and everything else is just a river sweeping past. I think maybe lately I've been trying to hold on to the water slipping through my fingers, and it's cause for anxiety. Instead of panicking about the water rushing by that I'm trying to stop from moving, I need to shift my focus to the anchors. The anchors are what matter anyway. The river will always continue running, taking everything once familiar with it. As I get older, it never ceases to amaze me how much faster time goes by every year. Seriously, how is it mid August already? It's like I blinked on New Year's Eve and suddenly appeared in August. And next think I know, I'll be wrapping Christmas presents... for my grandkids. Well, that might be a bit exaggerated, but still, at this point it seems like time will just keep accelerating exponentially.
I remember back at a horse show once, when I rode horses competitively, advice that my trainer was giving to another rider who was about to go do a jumper course. In jumper events, you're trying to jump through the course as quickly as possible, without knocking any rails off the fences (which incurs a penalty). She told my friend to slow down time in her mind, to think that it took forever to get from one fence to the next. It kind of reminds me of those scenes in the Matrix where everything goes slow-mo and people are dodging bullets. Anyway, I'm trying to live life like how Julie described riding through the jumper course. Time will always be moving quickly, but we can slow it down by mentally taking the time. When I think back, I was so frantic running through some jumper courses and I always did so poorly when I didn't take the time in between fences to ride well and remember everything I was taught. But when I rode like I had all the time in the world, I rode well. Maybe the metaphor doesn't translate well, but it works for me.
