The quiet opportunities of a daily life

The interruption I did not know I needed came in the form of simplicity

Autumn Falling

Fall afternoons are simply gorgeous here in Central Virginia. The temperatures are nearly perfect, the skies are bright blue, the tips of the trees are beginning to turn orange, and there’s just enough of a breeze to make sitting outside an absolute pleasure.

I found myself enjoying one of those afternoons with my pal Greg. He had asked me to help him with a marketing plan, knowing my background in advertising and marketing, so we settled into our usual spot outside the building to do a little work.

Now, you have to understand something about our patio. It isn’t really a patio at all. It’s an extra-wide sidewalk that runs along the entire block of our building, so people going about their business downtown walk right past where we’re sitting

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And on this particular afternoon, they kept stopping.

One after another, people would come walking down the sidewalk, recognize Greg, and stop to visit. Most of these were people he’d known for 20, 30, even 40 years. Old friends, acquaintances, people he’d done business with over the years. I knew only one of them, but that didn’t seem to matter one bit.

Nobody was in a hurry. Nobody seemed particularly concerned about getting somewhere else. They just wanted to stop, say hello, catch up, and enjoy a little conversation.

And something about the whole experience struck me as rather extraordinary.

Thirty years ago, I doubt I would have given an afternoon like this a second thought. People stopped to visit with one another all the time. It was just part of everyday life, and certainly nothing worth writing an article about.

But lately I’ve been noticing something. I see articles and videos about how bland life has become, how people aren’t enjoying themselves anymore, how everything feels uncertain and a little overwhelming. And goodness knows, if you spend much time watching the news, you’d think there wasn’t a single pleasant thing left to look forward to.

Yet here I was, sitting on a sidewalk in downtown Lynchburg, surrounded by people who apparently hadn’t gotten that memo.

Nobody talked about the economy. Nobody talked about elections. Nobody talked about wars or the latest terrible thing happening somewhere in the world.

Instead, they talked about things they were looking forward to doing in the coming weeks and months. They laughed, they reminisced, they shared little bits of news about their lives, and then they went on their way.

One gentleman in particular made quite an impression on me. He was a lifelong friend of Greg’s, and I swear, goodwill just radiated from this man. You know how you occasionally meet someone whose genuine kindness is almost something you can feel? He was one of those people.

We were introduced, had a delightful little conversation, and I found myself thinking how refreshing it was to spend time with someone who seemed genuinely happy to be standing there talking with us.

Now, I’ll admit that I haven’t had a great deal of social interaction lately, so perhaps that made the afternoon even more special. But I think there was something else going on, too.

For a few hours, I wasn’t worrying about anything.

And yes, I worry.

I even worry about you ladies. Y’all didn’t know that, did you?

Well, I do.

Some of you have names and faces I know well. Others I’ve never met, but I read your comments and your emails, and I know that some of you are struggling to figure out what comes next in your lives.

I care about that. Probably more than I should sometimes, because the truth is, I can’t figure out anybody else’s life for them, no matter how much I’d like to help.

And lately, I’ve been carrying more of that concern around with me than I realized.

But sitting outside that afternoon, watching people greet one another and listening to their conversations, something shifted.

I wasn’t thinking about my newsletter, my work, my responsibilities, or what I needed to accomplish before the day was over.

I was simply enjoying being there.

I’ve talked before about something I call a pattern interrupt. It’s just a fancy way of saying that sometimes we need to do something different to get ourselves out of whatever rut we’ve fallen into.

And the funny thing is, I didn’t set out to interrupt anything that afternoon.

I wasn’t looking for a breakthrough. I wasn’t trying to improve my attitude or change my thinking. I was sitting outside helping Greg with a marketing plan, and a perfectly ordinary afternoon turned into something wonderful.

The blue sky, the changing leaves, the comfortable breeze, the laughter, the friendly faces. All those little things came together and reminded me how much pleasure there is in simply being alive.

And perhaps the best part was that none of it was particularly important.

We weren’t solving the world’s problems. We weren’t accomplishing anything remarkable. Nobody was trying to teach anybody a lesson or convince anybody to change their life.

We were just people enjoying one another’s company on a beautiful fall afternoon.

And I came home feeling better than I had in quite some time.

So here’s what I want to share with you today.

If life has been feeling a little dull lately, or you’ve been carrying around more worry than you’d like, consider interrupting your usual routine.

Go sit outside for a while. Take a walk somewhere you haven’t been lately. Call an old friend just to hear her voice. Strike up a conversation with someone. Or simply find a comfortable place to sit and watch the world go by. ( my fav)

You don’t have to make an event out of it, and you certainly don’t have to accomplish anything.

In fact, I think that’s what I enjoyed most about my afternoon.

For a few hours, nothing needed fixing, nobody needed changing, and there wasn’t a single thing I had to prove.

I just got to enjoy my life.

And you know what?

That’s a pretty damn good way to spend an afternoon.

And aren’t we as retired ladies deserving of such an afternoon?