My gift from nature this past weekend was “meeting” a turtle on my morning walking route. The encounter was a reminder that whatever our destination or goal, slow and steady can still win the race.
After I passed the creature I began to worry that the cars zooming down this neighborhood road might crush it.
But when I looped back around to check, I saw that the turtle had somehow scurried out of harm’s way and found safety alongside a curb – providing another nugget of wisdom: that even as we persist, it’s vitally important to practice self-care.
I’m sure that turtle will get wherever he or she was headed, and the important thing will be doing so as whole and strong as possible.
May you go, be and do the same.
Meaningful lessons can be found anywhere, in any form – even during a morning encounter with a turtle. – Stacy Hawkins Adams
Are you tired yet? I admit that I am. Tired of turning on the news each day to hear more bad news. Tired of carefully plotting trips to the grocery store or pick-up times for carryout meals so that I strategically encounter as few fellow humans as possible. Tired of wondering when this season of semi-isolation and racial unrest and economic uncertainty will ease.
Yet, what if…just what if this season has come to make us weary? To shake us up? To help us long for and actually create a new normal – a better world borne from the ashes of all that wasn’t working?
What if this darkness is the precursor to a brighter light and a better way – one that we can’t even imagine because it’s so powerfully positive? What if we do our part, in this present moment, individually and collectively, scared or brave, to make this so?
I humbly offer up my part, through the calling I’ve embraced since my elementary school days – my writing. For I know, that I know, that I know that there is beauty and hope and transformation available in and through the written and spoken word.
As you ponder your next steps and how you can somehow make this pandemic-laden season better for yourself and others, I invite you to bathe yourself in words that help you heal, cling to hope, find some measure of happiness and strengthen your heart.
I invite you to consume the words offered up here – in a few videos I recently recorded, in a recent blog post and in my on-sale book offerings (worthy reads or re-reads this summer). I also encourage you to explore and enjoy the many other options available from my fellow scribes. Challenge yourself to read at least two books this summer by authors who are new to you and whose work may not only entertain you, but also expand you in some way.
May what I share in this space be the start (or continuation) of your efforts to practice self-care and protect your spirit. You’ll need to do more and more of that during these uncertain times, and you should do so with gratitude and without guilt.