I just finished a book that I can't stop thinking about, Chasing Slow by Erin Loechner. Erin is a Lifestyle Blogger who shows us through her blog what a beautiful life we can all have. The book however, takes us behind the curtain, into Erin's real life, a life anything but always picture perfect. Her honesty, and writing won me over from the first chapter.
But it is the title that I keep coming back to Chasing Slow, something I am forever doing. My middle name is Get It Done, I can enjoy it later. But what if later never comes, how many things have I sped through to cross them off my list..
Slow is never going to be easy for me. I take after my dad, a man in his eighties still out cutting firewood to add to the multiple rows of firewood he already has. And maybe that is what keeps my dad going and why he is still alive in his eighties. But when we were sitting in the hospital waiting room last summer we talked, there are so many things he wishes he had done. I don't want to have those same unfulfilled wishes in my eighties.
This week I took my first step toward practicing slow. I went to the Garden Center, to buy some plants for the weed-riddled flower bed I pinky promised my husband I would maintain this year. Instead of buying the first plants that met my criteria: full sun, not too tall, long blooming. I took my camera and wandered. I did ask permission to photograph first, which was met with a pleasant, "Of course you can, and if anybody gives you any trouble send them to me". My new best friend Kathy, doesn't know what beast she just unleashed.
What did I discover as I wandered? I love containers more than plants. Put a plant in a container and then I am in love with it. I never would have discovered this if I wasn't practicing slow.
Photographing flowers in my own garden, or anybody else's garden will never delight me, but let me loose in a garden center with plants in pots, or just pots, and I could really start to enjoy gardening.
I am going to keep practicing slow at the garden center, because that weed-riddled flower bed needs a lot of help, and I want to see what other revelations slow reveals.
11 comments:
Practicing slow is a wonderful thing to nourish! We see and experience so much more. Love your shots of the Garden Centre, especially those last lovely shiny blue and aqua pots! Now I'm going to look at that book you've just read!
The blue pots are gorgeous. Did you take any home? :) I love your photographs, they really tell the story of your wandering through the garden center. Shallow depth of field is something I have been playing with for a while now, you got it spot on. Thank you for the book recommendation, I will have to check that one out.
Fill that flower bed with pots then!! Wouldn't that be wonderful? I personally would still add flowers to them too but then I lean to enjoying the flowers more than the pots, ha! I'v just recently begun to pay attention to the pots I use with my houseplants. Because I've always loved the rustic look of old terracotta that's what I've always used but in the house, I realize that I really add to the look by a nice pot and so I've actually purchased some new ones.
This made me smile. Wish I were there to help you with that flower bed, since I have none of my own but want to. Great post, Sarah, some of your best writing, I think. I especially loved the paragraph in the middle about your father. It tells us so much about both of you.
Chasing Slow has me listening . . .
because of you . . .
Now I too want to read the book.
Garden Centers pull me in too . . .
Everything looks put together, contained, pretty . . .
And I rush to purchase, create . . .
Taking your message to heart . . .
and taking it slow . . .
I've never been real fond of taking pictures of flowers either. Garden centers are a wonderful place to slow down! Love the stacks of blue pots.
This is a really wonderful book, Sarah, and some really, really good advice.
Thank you for sharing!
I do like the idea of practicing slow - I'm really not good at slow. I do like gardening, though, when I have the time - which is almost never because I'm too busy not being slow with other things... sigh...
I am pretty good at slow...my husband needs to read the book. :)
Love your shots and will definitely check out the book!!
Those blue pots are devine! I also love containers. Going slow enables us to really see. I am always lamenting that there is nothing new to photograph in my town. I'm going to take my camera with me the next time I go to a greenhouse.
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