Slow and Steady Wins the Race (But There is No Race)

My daughter is often an animal. Sometimes for a morning, an afternoon or for days. 

Cat, raptor, dinosaur, bee, unicorn, beast, spider, cheetah, owl, chicken, cow, worm... 

Often, I am of the mama variety and she is the baby—Mama Tiger and Baby Tiger. Sometimes she is still in her egg and I have to sit on her. Sometimes, it’s reversed. 

The record for the longest title is Turtle. We were turtles for weeks and weeks. Being Mama Turtle felt really good. She’d often insist that we go into our shells (under a blanket), be silent, or move in slow motion. And so we’d walk our very slowest from the couch to the bathroom or along Spadina Avenue, holding hands, as everyone passed us. 

I was Mama Turtle at a time when my emotions and thoughts would have been better aligned with Cheetah, Scorpion, or Tyrannosaurus Rex. Our play helped me slow down my frantic body, even letting my mind (sometimes) follow.

Before acute anxiety, I was always busy. Always doing something, going somewhere. By nature, I was a fast walker.

But today, turtle walking is something I tend to do everyday. Sometimes it’s around a busy city block or through Grange Park. Sometimes it’s up and down the aisles of a local shop or just the last ten steps to my front door. It is especially sweet to do when I am feeling great.

Today I made a point of keeping the lid off as I walked with my coffee. It helped keep me in turtle mode as I strolled along Queen Street. Walking with my hands in my pockets also reminds me to slow down. Somehow, doing this and speeding along the sidewalk just don’t align. 

I thank anxiety for making this practice a non-negotiable.

After all, ‘it takes a lot of slow to grow’.*

*From a children’s poem I once came across entitled, Here Come the Grown Ups

From Sometimes I Feel LIke a Fox by Danielle Daniel