A Different Pace

On Thursday afternoons I leave my downtown office at 3:30 pm to meet Side-by-Siders for a walk along the Centennial Trail. I always show up late for the gathering because my work team has a recurring, Thursday meeting that ends only just in time for me to bid a hasty goodbye to my boss, race-walk to my car parked four blocks away, and drive a bit too fast toward Side by Side’s meeting place at Salem Lutheran Church. 

One recent Thursday I was running particularly late. I hurried to lock my car and hustle to the church. Upon arriving at the courtyard where SBSers gathered, I dropped into a folding chair and set down my heavy work backpack just as the last few people finished answering the ice-breaking question: if you had to choose, would you pick soup, salad or sandwich for a snack? I blinked and took a deep breath as the gentle chatter ebbed and flowed around me. So sudden was the transition from work-day hurry to this patient, peaceful pace, that I felt rather like I’d run headlong into a brick wall. 

SBSers on a recent Thursday afternoon on the Centennial Trail.

At work, time is valued per the number of tasks crossed off the to-do list each hour. We squeeze meetings into already-full days, with hardly any time to use the restroom in between. Most of my colleagues eat lunch at their desks while typing up emails to clients. My laptop keyboard has fine crumbs irrevocably lodged in between the A, S, and D keys from the granola bars I scarf while preparing to-do lists for the day. I hurry to and from my car. I hurry to refill my coffee mug. I hurry to meet deadlines. 

So when I arrived at Side by Side that particular Thursday with my brain buzzing from work, I recognized the transition from my metaphorical 60 mile-per-hour work life to this literal, 4-mile-per-hour walking pace would be clunky. Thankfully, my companions were unperturbed by my frenetic interior. There was nothing left to do but simply begin walking. 

Our group included those as young as six years old and as old, perhaps, as sixty. Some were very keen walkers, but others required encouragement to put one foot in front of the other. We did not move very quickly along the trail. The Spokane Falls was our destination, but we knew we may not make it that far and somehow the purpose of our trip was undiminished by that fact. By the end of the walk my breath had slowed and the knots in my mind had loosened. 

This is the pedagogy of Side by Side: together we teach one another to treat time and our companions as gifts requiring unhurried attention. I am an absolute beginner in this way of moving through the world. It is hard for me to trust that the agenda of simply being in one another’s presence is sufficient. I wonder, am I connecting properly with enough people? Am I asking the right kind of questions to the right people but keeping easy silence with others who need less talk? Am I doing this right? In short, am I enough? Thankfully my Thursday trail companions are willing coaches; I will keep walking.