I’m not a city girl.
At least, not born-and-raised.
I love the city. I spent the past week on a vacation in Boston, staying out on the streets far too late, admiring city-folk that are far too wealthy, and (quite honestly) spending far too much money on cannolis from Mike’s Pastry. And I loved every second of it.
In fact, I loved it so much that it was a little off-putting to spend the last few days of my vacation in a lakeside cottage in New Hampshire. Don’t get me wrong, I love sitting amongst the pine trees and falling asleep to the sound of crickets just as much as the next person. But I couldn’t help but long for that fast-paced city feel again–an environment that I found myself so madly in love with, perhaps because I didn’t grow up in it.
Seeing a bunch of well-dressed business professionals fast-walking from here to there with their Bluetooth headsets in and hearing cars honk at us from what seemed like miles down the block made me think of how fast life moves sometimes–and how often we like to criticize it when it does.
“Be still,” we always say. “Don’t live too fast.”
But when did being still become the answer? It’s as if the phrase “be still” has become the trump card amidst a hand that just might screw us over, but also just might win us the entire game–if we play it right. It’s the card that we play to stay comfortable when we don’t know what else to do or are too afraid to play any of the others. “Be still,” says the trump card. “Those other cards? They’re too risky.”
Sometimes I think we forget how beautiful it is to be in motion. We spend so much time criticizing our own hustle and bustle that we ignore how spectacular it is to do a waltz with life instead of sitting at the bar, or to jump-rope through the things that normally trip us up instead of being the ones holding the rope. Sometimes, we forget how beautiful it is to adventure, to live, to be–without sitting around “being still” in anticipation.
Anticipation is like a loaded gun–a state of being that’s never satisfied with simply existing and always wants to run away from where it’s at. It’s that little part of us that keeps waiting for a cue to come over the intercom that finally tells us, “It’s showtime!”–as if human action ever needed permission.
I believe in being still sometimes. But I don’t want to get to the end of this life only to realize that I spent so much time being still that I forgot to marvel being in motion. We can wait in anticipation forever, but life is still going to do that waltz and it’s still going to hop through that jump-rope whether we’re ready for it or not. I’m not going to sit around relying on the trump card or waiting for life to go first. I’m going to play the risky cards, grab life’s hand, and tell it to hurry the hell up. There’s a lot to see out there.
