More slow, less busy
No bucket lists, no resolutions, this is all I want in 2025
Tomorrow I return to my day job after almost two weeks off. Outside, the sky is an endless summer blue with a skin-searing kiss; later, during the balmy sunset, I will venture outside to water the vegetable garden and stretch our legs. Now, I remain inside, eating a crunchy Fuji apple and sewing a travel pouch for my daughter who plans to visit Greece in the northern summer.
I am making the most of the last hours of a much-needed pause from responsibility and routine, resisting the inevitable turning of the mind to alarms and lists and getting stuff done. My mind is not ready to let go, lingering in a liminal space of past and present: a run-down body getting sick as soon as the holiday started, cancelled Christmas plans, the worry of not being well enough to travel. Airports, planes, trains, buses. Catching up with family and friends, while trying to negotiate time for ourselves. The familiarity of childhood meeting the change of years gone by. A slowing down, a speeding up. The haze of the Blue Mountains, a cacophony of cicadas, a lost kangaroo in a new suburb that was once an expanse of trees. These images are a montage on a loop, mostly drowning out the fact that another year has started and I have not arrived at much clarity about what I want for my life to look like this year.
Three weeks ago, I wrote:
“Maybe now is the time to go a different way, for us to emphatically and bravely choose a lifestyle that aligns with who we are and how we want to live. To close the one door that is propped ajar and maybe another. Even if it means less money. Even if it means - and this is especially hard for us to let go of - not travelling to as many places overseas as we hoped …”
I know what I don’t want. What I truly want is harder to answer, because it’s about more than just me. I thought I’d have time to think about this while on my break, but between getting sick, travelling cross-country to visit extended family, and coming home on Friday to a burst water pipe (true story - it put our holiday reminiscing on hold) that won’t get fixed until next week, there has been little time to reflect. I haven’t even come up with my one word yet, something I often mull over on as a new year starts.
In the past, I would have reproached myself: I should have done this by now, it’s January 5, for goodness’ sake!
But I am being gentle with myself.
The changing of one year to the next does not mean you need to have all the answers. It is simply the passing of one day to the next, and all the expectations that come with that one day, come from us as humans. We don’t have to come up with resolutions, intentions, meaningful words, quotes to live by, lists of “25 things in 2025”, and so on just because the sun set on one year and rose to greet another.
We don’t have to do this between December 25 and 31 or on January 1.
We don’t have to do it at all.
Less is more
There is one thing I have done, one thing I reflected on after reading
’s post “What four words will change you in 2025?”, a gentle invitation to consider making two vows: something you want more of and something that you want less of.What calls for me is this - more slow, less busy.
More slow, less busy. That is what I want.
Perhaps the question is not what do I want, then, but how will I achieve more slow, less busy? There are three possibilities:
The hard one - quit work and learn, as empty nesters, to live on one wage (and maybe complete my next book). I both love the idea of this but fear losing the independence of earning some kind of wage (writing here does not yet offer that).
The easy one (in theory) - find a three-day a week job.
The wild card - study bibliotherapy and transition to consulting as a bibliotherapist. I’ve only recently come across bibliotherapy as a practice, but the more I read about it, the more it feels like a good fit. Like, if there was a job that fitted my exact skillset and past work experience, I think that would be it.
A digression
The smell of freshly brewed coffee reaches my nose. I wander to the kitchen where A is playing barista. The coffee is strong, just the way I like it. We sit together while birds dance in the bird bath outside the window, and talk about our trip to Sydney, and agree that we don’t feel ready to let our pause wind up, especially with more uncertainty ahead … but with each sip, we feel our free time slipping away. I have spent the day doing what I want, but I feel inexplicably tired.
It feels like a gentle warning. Or maybe, less of a warning, more a reminder.
More slow. Less busy.
More S L O W.
Slow days - the in between of Christmas and New Year
We leave the house at 3am to catch the early flight to Sydney. Family reunions await - a large, belated Christmas gathering, and several smaller gatherings. We will have little time on our own, but we are gifted two pockets of time for two day trips to the Blue Mountains, home of my heart. The first day starts with breakfast at 2773 in Glenbrook, followed by a Ploughman’s Lunch at Dry Ridge Estate in the Megalong Valley, and gelato in Katoomba. The second time, we had imagined a trip to the city, a day of ferry hopping and exploring around Sydney Harbour, but the call of the bush is too strong. Being in this landscape evokes in us an emotional response of the sort you might feel in the presence of great art or while listening to a piece of music. It is more than beautiful, more than “WOW!” and not everyone feels the same way with the same stimulus. Here, gazing across the hazy blue tree-ocean, I get goosebumps, my eyes well up. I am not sad, far from that, but happy does not do this indescribable feeling justice. It is more like joy, but of the most pure kind that comes from the sublime.
“I have missed this place, this ancient landscape that looms over the Western Sydney valley where I grew up.”
(From ‘Feeling My Way’, my contribution in The Heart Will Find a Way anthology, published by Southern Key Press, 2024).
On my desk to my left, there is a postcard showing the Pool of Siloam in Leura (Blue Mountains, NSW). I plan to send this postcard to someone who comments on this post, but for now, as I prepare to start another work year - whatever it has in store - I am pausing for a moment to remember the sublime.
I move the postcard. Underneath is an A4 sheet of paper with these words printed: More Slow, Less Busy.
Go your own way
That day, we had planned to drive to Victoria Park for a meal at one of our favourite restaurants … or perhaps test our tastebuds with something new. In Perth, this area offers a feast for every palate and budget - it’s a paradise of cheap eats with a few elegant, arty establishments: handmade noodles,…
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I have to say - and you’ve probably thought this already, Monique, so nothing new and earth shattering from me - the three ‘options’ sound like three ‘steps’ … a gentle evolution versus a ‘big bang’ revolution. Step One, commit to possibilities by removing certainty (you’ll never know about living on one wage unless you experience it - equate it to JoJo and I closing our deli, selling the house and buying a van, without the ‘no home, roaming life’ part!) … create new structure (a commitment to 1,2, 3 days at ‘work’ … something different … a coffee shop, someone else’s small business, a volunteer role, reading to kids at school, a library, a bookshop … a blend of all of them) … fill some of the capacity you’ve created with study - try it for size. Sounds exciting.
Also, ‘human being’ not ‘human doing’ works for me!
Bon Courage. Barrie
Small steps often lead to the big one. And there’s a natural progression that you can feel in your bones. We’ve often said, “If we don’t try it, we’ll never know what might have been,” giving ourselves grace if it doesn’t work out.