slow takes

Today’s writing prompt is about slowing down and using silent observations as a guide for where to begin. The chapter’s author, Rachel Schwartzmann, author of Slowing and the multimedia project Slow Stories, suggests setting a five-minute timer and doing nothing but looking and observing what comes up. This is my slow story.

Gratitude.

For the house around me that has become my first single-family home. For the architect who designed the blueprints, long ago sketching marks on a page to represent rooms that would someday hold space for my life to unfurl. For the vision that formed in the architect’s mind for a home, the last of sixteen Daniel and I would walk through on a cold December day, some 25 years later, and instantly know was meant to be ours.

Gratitude.

For the interior designer who thoughtfully selected each material and texture, like the golden lumber beams shouldering our ceiling’s rough-hewn planks, each positioned beautifully at alternating angles that invite you to lie back, relax, and look. For the round smooth sections of adobe walls that soften square corners and invite your hand to reach out and touch.

Gratitude.

For the muscular, yet delicate fingers of the Moroccan weavers who hand-knit the vanilla and indigo rug beneath my feet as I watch Fischer twist on her back, dancing belly up in its soft shag threads.

Gratitude.

For the craftsman who artfully split the cream and copper ledgestones that would one day become my fireplace hearth, and for the nursery gardener who lovingly cared for the foyer fig tree long before she was mine.

This carved out time of slowing and observing sparked gratitude for the endless stories my home holds – the ones I know, the ones yet to be told, and the ones that will ever remain out of reach.

Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, and pass it along to a friend. Connection is a powerful antidote. Thank you!