In a world that mostly flows, why we need both an ebb and flow
{a note to SOAR subscribers, shared}
Our world is at a fever pitch, something like the vibe in the stands of that Mexico versus England World Cup match. All of us are becoming incrementally more comfortable with more noise, more activity, more fruitless online bickering … and also more health tips, more life hacks, more party ideas, and more redecorating suggestions. The good and the bad, more of all of it. Just more.
Between reps in my morning weight-training class, a 30-year-old asked, “What do you guys think about collagen?” (It seems her algorithm isn’t so different from mine.) I could have chimed in, “any thoughts on microplastics?” because even our in-person exercise is now intercepted by biohacking. There’s always more.
More to do better, more to shortcut, more to make more time to imbibe more … of what, exactly?
If I stepped straight from 2006 into 2026, my body would freeze under the weight of all that is being asked of it. Can I squeeze cardio bursts, Pilates, strength training, Zone 2 workouts, and deep breathing into a life that also apparently needs 95 ounces of water and 90 grams of protein in every single day? The lyrics I just learned yesterday are “unc” today, and the news slips through my conscious thinking like sand in an hourglass … but not without first leaving irrevocable marks on my mind, and I am already accidentally fearful just from being alive and aware of what’s happening all over the world.
My May into June mirrored the fever pitch of what I experience around me when I swerve to avoid drivers reading their texts in their otherwise-free minutes, or others giving me the finger or shouting out the window because road rage is now as common as morning coffee. We lived more in May. More teacher and coaches gifts, more end-of-the-year recitals, more sports camps, more Amazon deliveries before family vacations (or during family vacations), more nights out than ones at home. In May and June, we flowed in the world of ebb and flow.
And in the middle of a year that I’ve dubbed my “Pilgrimage of Slow,” it’s instructive to notice that most lives will never throttle down to an ebb. As hard as we may try, there are still Mays and Decembers.
But the flow can still teach us, and this May into June, I was taught.
A day in mid-June, just before we left for our trip across the country to the beach, looked like this:
We hosted friends who needed a place to stay in our basement, while I dragged suitcases down from the attic and rummaged through the garage for pool toys and our Tommy Bahama chairs. We took the dog to be groomed between the swim meet and basketball camp, and in the meantime, I wrapped 80th-birthday gifts for my mom and 49th-birthday gifts for Nate. The kids also made Father’s Day cards, and I typed up notes for watering our plants and taking out the trash, in between scheduling a mail hold and cleaning out the fridge. This was all one day in the middle of many days just like it.
