Singular

I spend last weekend unplugged, alone with very limited access to the internet and email. It was wonderful and restoring.

We are so connected that it's easy to forget how lovely it can be to not think about everything at once. I know I often forget that really, I don't need to check email every 30 minutes. That the world will not end if I don't know what CNN has to say. That Twitter, as much as I love it, will get along just fine without me.

For the last few days I did only one thing at a time. I was a singular entity.

If I was eating, I ate. I felt the textures of my food and took the time to taste each bite. I didn't have a book open or the tv on while I consumed my meal thoughtlessly.

When I wrote I was thinking only about the structure of each sentence, the way the paragraphs connected. There was no music, no wondering when I would get to the dishes. I was only mind and fingers on keys.

When I walked felt my muscles pull and lungs expand. I was in the world, of the world.

I was singular, not struggling to do multiple things at once. How lovely.

It's easy to forget that we evolved to do one thing at a time most of the time. Red Riding Hood got into trouble when she did too much at once. But Jack saved his family by doing one thing at a time.

Be Jack. Be a trickster who knows when hide, knows when to run, knows when to chop. And does each thing for itself, very well.


(c)2010 Laura S. Packer