The Lockdown Isn’t Slow Living

Feb 2

Back in, say, April, when we were just starting to realize that pandemic life was going to be a long-term proposition, some of us got excited. Suddenly, everyone had the opportunity to experience slow living. While no one was rooting for the virus to take hold long-term, the lockdown seemed like a golden opportunity for all of us to step back from the “hustle” mentality and, I don’t know, bake some banana bread?

Ten months later, I just want to say: this is not slow living.

Or rather, it doesn’t have to be like this. Slow living absolutely can be staying home and reading a book, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be making dinner in your own kitchen, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be playing board games or doing puzzles or taking walks around the neighborhood, but it doesn’t have to be.

In his book In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore writes, “Despite what some critics say, the Slow movement is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. Nor is it a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some pre-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world. That is why the Slow philosophy can be summed up in a single word: balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast, and be slow when slowness is called for.”

If lockdown bores you, that doesn’t necessarily mean slow living isn’t for you. I’m bored by lockdown, and I’ve been prioritizing Slow since my first job out of college, when I brazenly asked my boss for extra vacation time in lieu of a raise.

Talking it through with Kevin recently, I realized that we both tend to regenerate by seeking novelty. Under normal circumstances, we get our fill of unique experiences through a combination of planned events like trips, concerts, or plays, and serendipitous moments like exploring a new neighborhood. In general, I’m the planner of the pair of us and Kevin’s the wing-it guy but between the two of us, we find Honore’s balance in our quest for the new and different: planning when scheduling is called for, and relaxing into chance when it makes sense to do that.

In California (and, I’d imagine, much of the rest of the world) right now, novelty is hard to come by. When not staying sheltered in our own home, it feels safest to stick to the familiar—stores we know we can get into and out of quickly, trails we’re sure won’t be terribly crowded, and takeout restaurants with a layout conducive to health protocols. Not only that, but everything requires a plan. If your definition of slow living involves experiencing the world outside your home, it’s hard to honor that right now. Pandemic Los Angeles doesn’t leave a lot of room for serendipity.

Or does it?

I started my January with a seasonal writing course from creative coach, Jen Carrington. As I worked through the prompts, one thing that came up over and over for me was my belief that magic happens when you make space for it. “Magic,” in this case, is my mental shorthand for beauty in moments that slow living brings to the fore. For the compulsive planner in me, that belief used to mean being careful not to overschedule. Right now, I realized, it means something completely different. It means still being mindful of the small moments at home, but also learning into a bit more planning and research for what may seem like smaller rewards. Making the space for magic in this moment in time sometimes involves building that space from the ground up.

This past weekend, instead of just randomly ending up in a new neighborhood at a park we’d never walked through, I did the legwork required to make that magic happen in COVID times. I researched a large city park with multiple areas, in case our first stop seemed too crowded. I familiarized myself with the various landmarks so we wouldn’t end up exposing ourselves to other people for something we wouldn’t even enjoy very much. And, mindful of balance, I didn’t demand anything specific from the experience, besides some fresh air and sunlight in a new place.

As it turned out, that was just enough. After hiking a trail to an outlook I’d read about, we found an ice cream truck parked alongside a large grassy expanse, where several families had gathered for picnics. We ordered root beer floats and found a spot on a hill, far from any other people to remove our masks while we ate. Down the slope, one of the gathered families had hired a pair of Mexican folk guitarists for their celebration and, as we sipped on our drinks, the strains of their music floated up to our perch, the first live music we’d heard in months. It was a different sort of planning vs. winging balance than we would have had pre-pandemic, but it was still magic.

Almost a year into this radically-altered lifestyle, we’re still grappling with what slow living means in the current context, but I can confidently say that lockdown ≠ Slow, at least not in any definition the slow living movement was built on. In fact, finding that slow balance right now may actually be more difficult than it’s ever been before. Missing your friends, wishing you could go to a concert, or desperately wanting to eat out at a nice restaurant doesn’t mean that slow living doesn’t work for you. It just means balance isn’t easy right now. It’s still worth it, when the opportunity arises, to try making the space for magic, even if it feels different than it did before. Sometimes, it takes being out of balance to see where the your point of equilibrium really sits.