The Year of Living Slowly

For a while now, I've been trying to figure out how to title this year.  I like titles, especially alliterative or allusive (or whatever allude's corresponding adjective is).  It makes it easier to categorize and store information.

Anyway, I've been looking for a title.  I've tried on The Year of Walking, The Year Down Under, The Year at the Beach, among others.  All these capture a large part of the year, but not to a satisfactory degree.  Tonight, sitting in my Sydney hotel room, it came to me in a flash…  an ironic juxtaposition.  This was, I think, A Year of Living Slowly. 

When we arrived in Australia, we didn't jump into an organized role.  We were the first of our kind at St. Mark's.  Slowly, we began taking on projects, saying yes to roles, and finding our place as the youth and families interns.  Culture was no different.  We didn't immediately infer the definitions to drongo, bogan, footy, and tucker.  Little by little SG and I added to our bank of cultural savvy. 

The two groups of people we worked the most with this year were old and young.  I don't mean old and young as a sweeping generalization for people of all ages.  I mean literally, people who are 84, and people who are 2.  Both of these kinds of people live slowly.  Walking beside Margaret or Joy at church means taking slower steps than my typical powerwalk.  They both use walkers.  Walking beside Flynn or Izzy means taking slower steps because their legs are shorter than mine. 

Eating meals takes longer in Australia because they still have vestiges of British culture.  Sometimes we start with soup.  There are slices of bread and dishes of butter.  That's followed by meat and veggies.  After you've tackled a plateful of roast lamb and pumpkin, don't untuck your napkin.  You can't have dinner without dessert.  It might be pavlova or passion fruit sponge.  After this, there's a cup of tea or coffee.  This isn't every meal in Australia, or I'd have gained ten kilos this year, but this gives you an idea of the time that is taken with food.

Storytelling.  Anyone who knows someone over 60 knows they usually like to tell stories.  Having lived much longer than SG and I, the people we go to church with love to tell us all about their adventures.  Let me tell you, they've had some doozies.  Traveling in Southeast Asia.  Teaching in one room schools.  Working for a Count (the royal kind) in France.  Working in apple orchards.  As you know, old people stories aren't usually confined to "when I was little, a dog bit my thumb off and my mother sewed it back on with her needle and thread, the end."  There's the hook, the background, the story, the punchline, and sometimes the moral.  It takes a while, but that's OK, this is the year of living slowly. 

We lived slowly by eating long meals, hearing slow stories, but it's also been a year of slow because we only just got a car.  Before that, we were afoot, or beholden (is that a real word) to other people for rides.  Sure, walking was slower and took longer than if we could just zip down to the church or the library or up to the high school.  It's also better for us, cheaper, and helped us get to know the place we were living.  You see more rainbows, pick more dandelions and hurtle puddles better when you're on foot anyway.

This year we were presented with circumstances that made living online more difficult.  The church internet was reasonable, but we'd have to walk there to log on.  The library internet was also free, but it's a further walk and has short hours on Mondays and Saturdays.  Three of the four places we've lived have had internet, but the house we're looking after right now does not.  This means we have a lot of time to read.  I know, it's not as visually stimulating as watching videos on YouTube or Tweeting that you just brushed your teeth, but I think it's been a #win for us. 

Even road tripping here has been slower than my usual experience.  A Sunshine family road trip (of which there were many) meant getting from Point A to Point B as fast as the speed limit would allow.  The jumbo bag of Jolly Ranchers nestled on the console next to the CheezIts.  There would be a drive through Taco Bell or sandwiches from the ice chest for lunch.  Road trips in Australia mean stops for morning tea.  If you're near a town, you find a café and order a cuppa.  If you're on the road, it means you pack a thermos.  Then there's lunch.  Don't forget afternoon tea.  This takes a while, but at least you're well caffeinated and have a chance to see the countryside. 

Watching God work in us and in people took time.  Lots of it.  Sometimes it was really frustrating.  Sometimes I wanted to throw things.  Why couldn't I learn and change quickly?!  Why couldn't Jesus just make people understand His truth right now?!  But He was working, slowly.  He was changing people from the inside out, in a way that wasn't always evident from the outside.  But there was change.  Even if it wasn't on my little schedule, God was here in Australia with us, teaching people about His glory. 

There you have it, a year in 10 paragraphs, or 11 when I finish this one.  I'm not the most patient person, and I think this year has been good for that.  We've taken our frenetic American college student impulses and buried them in the sand here in Oz.  I think it's been good for our blood pressure.  Summing up a year is difficult, but I rationalize that if I keep writing and representing it in different ways from different angles, you might just pick up on what a wonderful year it has been. 

Love from the slow lane,

Little Miss Sunshine