Lightly (i.e., chainsaws win)

I should start claiming it as a weekly ritual, because there is usually at least one day a week that I call my “social hangover” day. As an introvert/extrovert, sometimes I desperately want to get out, but then other days I need a recharge – which usually consists of me, the couch, a blanket, FB doomscrolling/book/journaling time, and my cats (I see that as a win).

In either case, when I was hyper-scrolling, I stumbled across an excerpt that I had seen before, but it particularly stood out to me, so I put it in my electronic back-pocket.

Today, I woke up to the lovely sounds of…chainsaws (still going). In Florida, I believe that a day cannot go by without chainsaws, lawn mowers, and leaf blowers. Always. However, I’ve been sliding into a state of overwhelm with a to-do list that won’t go down (even with the looming due dates) and first-world problems in which I cannot seem to have a single thing actually work out/go smoothly in planning a pretty major work trip.

As I laid there trying not to lose it, I had to laugh a little because I was gritting my teeth and obsessing over those darn chainsaws. And then I had to think…what’s my plan? Start running over towards them flailing my arms about? Shaking my fist to tell them to get off someone else’s yard? Chainsaws win.

I started to follow that path a little more and think about what I’m really facing and what I can actually “do” about it. That’s when the excerpt came back to me. I definitely couldn’t phrase it better myself:

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”

Aldous Huxley – Island, 1962.