By Paula Levin
Is it just me or does this world feel like a bit much of late? From morning to night we are assaulted by struggle and hardship – most of it not even our own! In our quiet moments, when the to-do list has been temporarily sedated, and our challenges large and small can be put down for a minute, we turn to our phones for some light relief, some inane silliness, some vicarious cooking or travel to take us out of ourselves. But they never fail to disappoint, delivering the most catastrophic and awful stories from the far corners of the earth directly into our brains for free, mixed in with whatever else the algorithm thinks will keep us scrolling to our doom. It’s a lot. So I decided to go outside and stare at nothing for a while.
The sky, as usual, was an astonishing blue. Nothing to see there. I glanced around my garden, and 15 more items crowded onto my mental shopping list. The first, a string of plastic greenery from Temu to instantly climb up the pretty arch I ordered from Temu 9 months ago. Because planting something and then waiting for it to grow is so last season. I don’t think I’m alone in struggling to slow down and just be. I think farm life would reset my inner tempo. Instead of measuring steps, heart rate and driving behaviour, I imagine sensing time through buds on trees and the angle of the sun in the sky. But I fear I’m too far gone. Also, nothing would irritate me more than a rooster crowing at dawn – like why are they so energetic, so early?
But maybe the real question is why aren’t we? Between the blue lights emanating from our phones till midnight and the mental load of solving anti-Semitism and peace in the Middle East, many of us are tired all the time, spending our life force on errands, headlines and WhatsApp groups we should have archived in 2019.
I’m jealous of Sizwe. He was a young gardener who attended a plant workshop I enrolled in a few years ago. I was there because I wanted to learn to grow my own food in case of a zombie apocalypse. Something that almost happened in Covid 19. Almost vindicating the post-pogrom anxiety disorder that is the genetic inheritance of most Ashkenazi Jews. Anyway, our task was to collect a soil sample from our gardens and bring it for evaluation. The lady running the workshop looked at his soil, and asked why it had no signs of life? Turns out Sizwe had painstakingly picked out every ant, earthworm and beetle, to spare them suffocating inside his Tupperware. I’ve always been moved by that act of mindfulness, presence and consideration for our planet’s tiniest beings. And ever since that gardening course I’ve felt the pull to a life that’s a little slower and a lot more intentional – as long as it doesn’t involve ruining my manicure, wearing ugly gloves, or touching sand. Because, like any nice Jewish girl, I’m totally tactile defensive – which is my kid’s OT’s term for not wanting grit under my nails.
Maybe what I am really looking for is not rural life, but to become a more observant Jew, quite literally. To put down my phone, notice what is in front of me and be humbled by the beauty of this world. To be astonished by that uneventful blue sky, put down the anxiety of climate change and to recognise what is actually in my hands to change. You’ll be the first to know if the algorithm ever finds me the ultimate life hack to bring me back to the present moment.
Paula Levin is host of Life & Lattes on ChaiFM. An author, book whisperer, speaker, and journalist, Paula loves telling the stories that help us better understand ourselves and each other. She is blessed to be married to Adam and is a proud Joburg Jewish mommy of three.