It’s one week until Christmas and I just rolled out of the hammock where I was reading a book while sipping a cup of tea. The breeze is light and the sunshine is warm and comforting. Today has been declared (by the Dolphin and Squid) an official day of relaxation on board QuickStar and I am doing my best to oblige. This is the first time in recent memory I have been one week out from Christmas and swinging indulgently in the wind rather than battling head on into a strengthening gale force of deadlines. There is usually an urgency that demands order and completeness be achieved by December 25, or else… Or else what? Most likely my world will not crumble and cave in around me if I let a few things slip. Nor will there be a flow on effect through the universe, dragging those around me into a black hole of hopelessness. In fact, I expect January is a perfectly fine month in which to tick things off the to do list and close out various projects.
Slow Christmas comes to us with many months of learning to live more deeply as the beauty in detail has time to burst into life in front of us. We have been practising spending longer doing less. That 7km walk last week in search of a coffee is what has replaced a dash in the car to` a café where we have ordered ahead on Hey You for quick coffee collection. Rather than a rushed snap shot as we passed through our last anchorage, the Captain took the time to sketch the steeply rising cliffs around us. When a passage of 40nm is all you can do in a day, there is no option but to take it easy and relax into the journey.
I have fallen out of the habit of busyness and am finding contentment in taking longer to do less. Along the way, I have discovered that I am still valuable. My happiness is not related to the number of actions achieved each day, but the grace with which I make my way through the day. Much better to stop with the Squid and examine in detail the action of ants on a bush track than trample them as we rush by on the way to our way to the next pit stop.