I live on a busy street. It’s fine. I don’t really mind. I don’t even mind the ambulance bay across the street or the main intersection just a few houses up. People who live on much quieter streets have said to us “It must be so noisy!”. You get used to it. We don’t really notice the sirens so much unless there are suddenly a lot of them, or they stop when they come near to our house – which always makes us look because either there is an accident, or someone nearby needs help. And in the summer when we are in the backyard with the waterfall on, we hardly notice it at all.
What I do notice, and hate, are noisy vehicles. Revving their engines, making life unpleasant for everyone. That I do hate. And I hate the vehicles that drive down our street really fast, completely ignoring the fact that while it’s a busy street, it’s not a racetrack and people live here.
One day I went for a walk. Spring seemed to have sprung, and it was a beautiful afternoon. No sooner than I had gotten down to the city sidewalk, a loud, speeding vehicle went by. I said out loud, “Why are you in such a hurry?” And I started thinking. Why are any of us always in such a hurry? We live in a fast-paced world. Or at least many of us do. We have so much to do, and only a limited amount of time to do it in. Take the kids to soccer, go to an appointment, go to yoga class (oh, the irony of hurrying to get to yoga class), pick up supper on the way home…
Sometimes when I know I need to slow down, perhaps for my health or sanity – or both – I have to tell myself to stop and then make a real effort to actually do it. “I’ll just finish this! No, stop for a minute. Take a breath. Take a break.” It seems so simple, but in the moment, it isn’t always. If I don’t make a point to go for a walk during the day, especially at the time of day I normally go, often it just doesn’t happen. “I’ll go later.” Sure I will. There won’t be other things to do that will make me forget. Right.
One day, my husband and I were on our way out to run some errands. I had filled the bird feeder and was going to take it back out when we went to the car. I set it down on the step in front of me and turned around to lock the door. When I turned back around, a chickadee swooped in – they are small, but fast – sat on the perch of the feeder, grabbed a seed, and left. My husband and I stood there frozen, looking at each other in shock. And then the chickadee came back! Perched, got another seed, looked around, and left.
We continued looking at each other in shock. What had just happened? The chickadee saw an opportunity and jumped on it. There was no waiting. Presumably it was hungry, there was food, why wait? For better or worse, where we live chickadees don’t seem to be all that afraid of people. This one clearly wasn’t, and I would like to think that being so fast put it on the top end of survival of the fittest.
Clearly animals have to be quick when it comes to getting food. They need to be sure they are safe, but if they wait too long, someone else may take it and the opportunity is lost. When I watch nature shows I inevitably cheer for the hunted, not the hunter, but of course they need food too. They aren’t generally hunting just for fun, they are hunting to feed not only themselves, but often their family as well, which we got to see for ourselves when we had the amazing opportunity to go on safari in Kenya in 2018.
We aren’t usually in a race to get our food before someone else does. To get the most popular toy at Christmas or the newest thing, maybe. Food? Not so much. But do we seize opportunities when they come up? Or do we wait to see what will happen? I like to analyze things. I am a planner. I can hear people who know me laughing as they read that. It’s okay. It’s who I am. Sometimes it’s a good thing, and sometimes it gets in my way, but it’s who I am. Right now, I am planning a vacation. We have waited a long time for this vacation. Life got in the way and it had to be postponed. Even when we – okay, I – first started thinking about it it was a long way off. And there were people who made not so complimentary comments about how far ahead I plan. And there were others who agreed that the planning is so much fun! I read about things we know we want to see and get excited! And along with those things, I discover things we wouldn’t have even known existed, things other people who have already been there wouldn’t have known to tell us about.
When I was planning our honeymoon, knowing that I am a planner, someone said that I must have every minute of every day planned. My response: “No way. I have spent almost a year planning a wedding. I’m exhausted!” I still planned, but it was a pretty loose plan. I had never planned a big vacation before. I didn’t know about booking attractions ahead and there was a lot I didn’t think about. But there was a lot of time to wander. And wander we did. And we found amazing things that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
Now when I plan, I leave enough room for wandering. For enjoying the journey from one planned thing to another. The other day I asked someone if there was something they thought we should see that might not already be on our list. Her response: “Making wrong turns on foot there is amazing. You find little treasures. That was my favourite part. You’ll love it. Have really good shoes for all the walking.”
There is a saying: “Not all who wander are lost.” I love that. For all my planning – and there is a lot – I still love the wandering. On our honeymoon in Rome, one day we were wandering. We really didn’t have any destination in mind that day and didn’t really know exactly where we were going. I looked across the street and said “What is that?” We crossed the street and still didn’t know exactly what we were looking at until we found a sign. It was the ruins of five pagan temples, probably thousands of years old, right there, in the middle of the city. No big deal. (In Rome it’s no big deal. Where I live we tear things down before they have a chance to get really old.) If we had never wandered we would never have found them even though they were right in front of us.
I think life is kind of like the way I plan vacations. Sometimes we need to be like the chickadee and take opportunities when they come, and sometimes we need to slow down and see what happens. It’s all about balance. I wish you balance this year. May we all see amazing things wherever we are, and along with our busy lives may we also find time to wander.