“The things you can see only when you slow down“, is a book by Haemin Sunim, ideal to put on your bedside table and read a bit every night before you go off to sleep (highly recommended!). But this post isn’t about that book. It’s actually about the things you can see only when you slow down. 

I am on the road to delights, literally ; on my way to my second home country where life, in my opinion at least, is full of delights. (Why I experience it like this is food for later). I have been over excited about this particular trip as I will be there for 2 months, of which 1 month alone. I have my head full of the projects I was working on when I was still living there, I am over excited because I think it will actually feel as if I am living there again.

We are in the airport, check in and security went overly smoothly and as it is, we are 3 hours early. We sit down at the Black Pearls restaurant, where next to the window we have a splendid view. We order a glass of Pinot Grigio, and my husband apologises ; he needs to deal with a work related problem, grabs his phone and starts texting, mailing, calling. I don’t mind. I have done the “How to break up with my phone in 30 days” by Catherine Price, so I don’t grab my phone but I put my elbow on the table and rest my head on my hand, and I look outside. I know, it is just an airport and not even a beautiful one. The weather isn’t spectacular either : the snow of this morning is all gone, it is grey, darkish, foggy and drizzling. But I stare outside and realise that the view is actually amazing. The grey of the sky, the grey concrete large parking space in front of me, the white of all the planes aligned one by one at one side, and then all the colourful tails. A plane is arriving, another one leaving. A fuel truck passes. A roar of a Jumbo taking off. I think of my “break up with my phone” book and I realise I would have missed this beautiful sight had I grabbed for my phone, as I probably would have done before.

Sitting there, quiet, silent, a sudden flow inspiration for a new post comes up in my head, and I realise that in the past, when the smart phone started to enter our lives but before it totally conquered it, I used to be an avid blogger. Then, bit by bit, I no longer had time and had lost inspiration.

Is there a connection? I realise that there is. I know there is. The things you see, but also the things that come into your mind when you slow down, or, in this case when you don’t grab your phone, are uncountable. 

Don’t get me wrong : I love my phone, I have always loved my phone (some of my friends and family used to call me the ‘Iphone help desk’), but I do not like how the phone has taken control of our lives. It is ‘easy entertainment’, and you miss out a lot of really nice things and lots of fun in life while you are gazing at your screen. How exactly do you feel when your friend, whom you are having lunch with, grabs for his or her phone in the middle of a conversation? Right?

Anyway, this exact moment, sitting here in the airport, looking outside, thinking about what to write, is a moment of delight. (Delight is my new favourite word, by the way).

I already know that this trip isn’t going to be how I expected it to be, but more on that later. 

You now have no choice but to follow me and continue reading ;-). But that is the Pinot Grigio speaking. 

As they say in Argentina : Chao!

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash