Pressing my head to his heart, I listened hard, straining to hear any gurgle or murmur of life. Hearing nothing, I felt the shock settle into my mind, slowing it down and then turning it off. "Don't leave me, Noah. Please, don't go," I whispered into...
It must be one of life’s little jokes... how we take everything, even life itself, for granted. We waste our childhoods wishing for what we don’t have, longing for the future, dreaming of ways to speed the time so we can hurry up and see the worl...
Memory is capricious. I can look back and see decadence, old bigots, the constant racial slurs, the bores, the wild cards, the bighearted, the family album of alcoholics, the saints, the old aunt propped in a chair saying only "da-da," the slow-motio...
It’s hard to walk briskly at this time of year; the accelerating pace of unfolding spring slows my own. I repeatedly stop- to watch what’s moving. Soon the torrent of migrants will completely overwhelm my ability to keep up with all the changes. ...
What Do the Trees Know? What do the trees know? To bend when all the wild winds blow. Roots are deep and time is slow. All we grasp we must let go. What do the trees know? Buds can weather ice and snow. Dark gives way to sunlight's glow. Strength and...
I locked the door and turned on the water to fill the tub. I made it so hot that I had to get in real slow. I wanted it to hurt; wanted my outside to feel as bad as my inside. I sat there a long time watching my skin turn redder and redder... Finally...
I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you re...
First, no qualms. Not the thinnest sliver of misgiving about the value of his work. He was able to feel that the most important job in the world was putting over . In the second place, he was as uninhibited as a performing seal. He never questioned h...
But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same...
Susan hardly had begun to slow down when Tera appeared from between a couple of buildings and loped over to the car. I leaned forward, opened the door, and she got into the backseat. I threw her the extra clothes I had picked up, and she began to dre...
He lived with his mother, father and sister; had a room of his own, with the fourth-floor windows staring on seas of rooftops and the glitter of winter nights when home lights brownly wave beneath the heater whiter blaze of stars--those stars that in...
Do you know about lock picking?” “I’m sure it’s like sex.” “I’m sure it’s not like sex.” “How would you know? Everything’s like sex. It’s the universal metaphor. To pick a lock, let me guess, you have to go slow at first, but ...
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and kno...
In truth I suspect that merely slowing down is not a very satisfying answer. What I need has less to do with my pace of life than my peace of life. At any speed, I crave a deep and lasting inner peace. And if it's solace I'm after, I don't need to pa...
A man in trouble laments that he did not listen to his teachers, and thus he finds himself in a sad state, utter ruin. A candid admission of a blunder is refreshing and not often heard in human affairs. It is the saint alone who is large-minded enoug...
Technologies of the soul tend to be simple, bodily, slow and related to the heart as much as the mind. Everything around us tells us we should be mechanically sophisticated, electronic, quick, and informational in our expressiveness - an exact antipo...
But there is something thrilling about the wait; investing your time and energy to imagine and create those characters in your mind’s eye and envisage what might happen to them before someone else tells you. It’s the slowness I like. Everything t...
Enjoy life, even in the most chaotic, hectic moments. Take time to breathe. Take time to consider what is important versus what is rubbish. Those are the times where slowing down is healthiest. Those are the times where it really counts. And, if you ...
Life is so diversified that to any statement I could make about living organisms there are exceptions. Because of the many exceptions, I should qualify everything I say with hedging phrases such as 'generally,' 'usually,' and 'almost always' But I'm ...
The day wore on, and all these bright colours subsided, and assumed a quieter tint, like young hopes softened down by time, or youthful features by degrees resolving into the calm and serenity of age. But they were scarcely less beautiful in their sl...
Perfection of effort is not required, by the way. It is the consistency of attempting to work these tools that brings the progress. It’s like anything else. If I want to tone muscle, lifting a ten-pound weight a few times every day will move me tow...
