Reflections
Pausing While the Flowers Unfold
Finding my wiser self in the moments before reacting
I’ve never been very good at pausing.
I was in college when I saw a girl in a Florida coffee shop walk by with a camera tattoo on her leg. I decided on the spot that not only did I also want a camera tattoo, I wanted it immediately.
My boyfriend at the time was alarmed. “Maybe you should think about it?” His voice was slow, reasonable, the one you’d use to try and calm a bear as you back away from it with your hands raised. To no avail, though. My early-twenties rebellion was activated. Tell me to think about something and I would decidedly not think about it at all.
That night, I walked into the only tattoo studio that was open near campus. The two men working there had been watching TV and appeared annoyed at the interruption. They also may have been a little or a lot high. I was undeterred. I was full speed ahead. There had been hours beforehand to slow down and reconsider, but who wants to wait when there is camera line art — which looked endlessly more cool in my quick Google image search — to get shakily inked into permanence on your skin?
Years later, I have many more tattoos, all of which were actually thought out ahead of time. I once considered getting the camera covered up, but ultimately left it alone. It’s my first tattoo, after all, and a symbol of one of my first great loves (photography).
It’s also an important reminder of what happens when you forsake the humble art of pausing.
I’m knocked over the head with the lesson again and again. Just take a breath, walk away, reevaluate, distract yourself, sleep on it.
But, again and again, I ignore myself. What do I know, anyway? I’m just the one who’s lived through every experience with myself, who’s seen firsthand how a hasty reply in the heat of the moment can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, breakups, apologies. All of it so easily avoided if I had just stepped outside or put the phone down, ignored the impulsive response pulsing on my tongue and in my fingertips.
The calm that eventually settles over the situation is like a white morning mist, and it happens every time without fail. I feel it cooling my skin and realize for the umpteenth time that there had been no need to react immediately, to panic, to let my stomach twist into complicated knots, to buy the thing, to get the tattoo the same day.
I also then realize there was a better way to say the thing I said, a more caring or empathetic way, an actual solution that could have been reached if I had given myself even just ten minutes to think about it. There’s a wiser me that exists in the space before reacting. But I pole vault right over her.
She wants to me to remember that there’s usually time to wait, to breathe. Once the red hot filter of impulsivity clears from my eyes, I can see that the other person actually meant no harm. I can see that I don’t even want the thing that I was so sure I needed as quickly as humanly possible.
It’s when I slow down that I understand with zen-like clarity that there’s more to nurture than my own immediate response. There are other people, their intentions, their feelings. There’s my future self to consider, the one who will have to deal with the consequences of whatever hasty decision I make today.
It takes so little effort to do better by her. To take a beat and zoom out, to take in the whole picture beyond the initial blurry edges.
Sometimes things move so fast that I forget pausing is even an option. It can feel like there’s no time to think. But I’m getting better at controlling my pace, even when something unexpected splinters through my day like lightning.
The other morning I was sitting at a red light waiting to turn right when the car behind me honked. I glanced in the mirror and saw them flailing their arms, angry at me for not pulling into traffic more quickly. I didn’t see a safe opening so I stayed put. The person behind me continued doing their car seat dance of impatience, and I felt an impulse begin to tug at my arm, the desire to lift my hand and gesture and reflect that person’s anger back at them.
But I waited half a second and everything slowed down, just a little. It was eight-thirty in the morning and I wanted to choose how I set the tone for the day. In an instant, my mind flipped through pages of memories, all the angry interactions with other cars on the road, always impulsive, never satisfying, often dangerous.
I leaned into the lull, decided to learn from the past, and didn’t engage. I kept my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road to my left. When I turned, so did the car behind me. They quickly moved to the left lane to pass then sped down the road before switching lanes again, swerving to avoid another car that had been attempting to inch out onto the road.
Then they were gone and I was relieved to realize that I had, in that moment at least, mastered the pause and chosen my response. It was a small victory, but a victory all the same.
A friend brought me a box of dried flowers for tea. You pour hot water over them and watch them unfold. The instructions say it takes three minutes for the flowers to steep. It also says to take those three minutes as an opportunity to stop everything else and be fully present.
The timing of the gift is fortuitous. I’ve begun to move more slowly, more deliberately, letting my brain enjoy the process of something instead of rushing to the result. I want to find peace in the in-between moments so that when a decision needs to be made, I feel more comfortable resting before reacting. I’m making it my cozy space, that place where my wiser self sits, that place that’s cool like the morning mist. This is the place where I can gather my thoughts and then say what I want with confidence, not because the words were the first that came to mind, but because they were the ones I chose with patience and purpose.
I’m retraining myself to take my time. To hold my reactions up to the light and study them before letting them flutter loose. This can mean I don’t text back right away or that I let an item sit in my online shopping cart for a few days.
I’ll often forget about the cart completely. I guess the item usually isn’t that important to have, after all.
