Slowing Down

Just recently, I decided to take the chance and get a haircut for the first time since January. I was about to make an appointment to get a trim when suddenly, the world shut down and we were all homebound with the unknowns of a new virus raging across the globe. Where I live in Massachusetts, hair salons and many other services have been closed until very recently. Unfortunately, my salon shut its doors for good, but my stylist is continuing on her own. She opened up a solo business in a small suite. When I went, no other people were in the room—just her and me. We both wore masks at all times. We both sanitized our hands. She took my temperature at the door. While it wasn’t no-risk, it definitely made me feel safer than some scenarios would. And I was tired of the involuntary duck-tail style mullet growing off the back of my head.

As is common with hair stylists, you get caught up in conversations as your hair is being done. One part of our conversations that struck me was how the pandemic has changed how hair stylists need to go about their business. My stylist told me that she takes half an hour between each client in order to clean and sterilize the facility before anyone else comes in. Normally, hair stylists are trained to take as many people as they can one right after the other in order to keep business up. But, in order to run business safely now, that is no longer possible. It’s forcing her to slow down, take less people in a day, and be careful and meticulous with her space.

One common theme I’ve found through this pandemic is slowing down, especially in the thick of social distancing when everything was shut down. We have had to stop and re-think everything we do. We must make sure we’re slowing down to wash our hands properly. We need to slow down and make sure we take a clean mask with us wherever we go in public. We haven’t been going as many places, so our consumption of gas to fill our cars has slowed down. We need to slow down and make sure surfaces are properly cleaned. My family has been slowing down to plan out our meals for two weeks at a time so we can go to the store less frequently. Families like mine, where parents are still working at home had to stop to plan their time more thoroughly in order to juggle working and childcare simultaneously. People who were laid off or furloughed found themselves with a lot of extra time on their hands that they previously didn’t have. They had to slow down and re-think how they spend their time.

So much of modern life is centered around cramming as much as possible into our days. Many of us spend forty hours of our week or more, working so we can pay our bills and support our families. A lot of people run businesses that are demanding in time and resources. People have hobbies and passions that they want to try to make time for as well. Those who are parents, like me, dedicate a huge portion of their time to their children and other family members—rushing back and forth to daycares, schools, practices, playdates, family outings. Between it all, it was hard to get a few moments to just be. The pandemic changed much of this for a lot of people. All this activity that once was so common suddenly came to a screeching halt. It was as if parts of the world for a period were frozen in time.

While being forced to slow down and change our habits has been frustrating for many of us, perhaps there is a part of this that we can grow from. How can we take this slowness with us into a more mindful state of being? 

I sometimes find it therapeutic to take the time to really wash my hands for the full twenty seconds or more now. I feel the smoothness of the soap on my skin, watching the bubbles form between my fingers. I focus on rubbing every part of my hands—on top of my hands, in my palms, between my fingers, around the edges of my finger nails, around the bottoms of my wrists, each joint on every finger. The simple act of washing our hands for the CDC’s recommended amount of time with soap can itself be a meditation. Try breathing slowly, noticing every part of your hands as you rub the soap over them. How do you feel when you’re done? I sometimes feel refreshed, because not only are my hands very clean, but I my mind feels clearer too.

Washing our hands as a meditation is one way we can embrace this slowing down. But, there are many ways we can make this slowness work for us. Being more mindful about how we take care of our spaces, being mindful about caring for each other as we put on our masks, and being mindful about how we spend our time—these are all ways we can slow down and be more present with ourselves and each other. I do so wish for this pandemic to end and for life to be back to normal, with everyone healthy and happy amongst each other again. But, when life throws us a curveball, we do with it what we can.