Originally posted on 06-08-07:
So yesterday I was standing in front of my bedroom window, savoring time and the visual world like a warm bath, and later that same day I was thinking about Uncle Charlie, my dad’s brother. Hatcher quoted Charlie as saying, “I’m going to have time to do everything I have to do before I die without getting in a hurry.”
Charlie made a living as a sawyer at a steam-powered sawmill in southern Alabama. There was a big lever he moved back and forth to feed the log into the saw, and Hatcher said that the way he moved that lever it looked like every breath would be his last, but he could get more useable lumber out of a log in less time than anybody else around.
He was also a bit unusual in that he was totally ambidextrous, and was a pitcher in the local baseball leagues. The umpires made a ruling that he could only switch arms between innings, because it was unfair to the batters if he threw one pitch left-handed and the next with his right. I suppose you can pitch without being in a hurry, even though the actual pitch happens very quickly.
Still later I was thinking about hurrying and mindful eating. I remember someone writing about being on a Vipassana retreat and feeling like they were in a competition to see who could eat more slowly, as if “slow” was equivalent to “mindful.” In my own experience, it is just as easy to have imaginary conversations with someone miles away whether I’m eating slowly or rapidly; in fact, there’s more time to think about other things if I’m eating slowly.
The idea of savoring your food is also linked to eating slowly, but I’ve come to realize there’s more to the enjoyment of eating than savoring tastes and textures. One thing I like is the feeling of having my mouth very full of wonderful tasting food—there’s something about the quantity that is enjoyable in a way that dainty little bites are not. When I take a big bite, I have to swallow several times before I get it all down, and there’s a certain kind of satisfaction in that succession of swallows, in the feeling of having swallowed and yet there being more immediately available for swallows yet to come. It’s comparable, perhaps, to the difference between soaking your cold hands in a basin of hot water and taking a hot shower—both are pleasurable, but there’s more total sensation in the shower.
Which reminds me of a story of a railroad engineer who was so fat he could barely squeeze himself through the door of the engine. The person telling the story said he had seen the big guy put a candy bar in his mouth and swallow the whole thing without chewing. I suppose there’s a kind of enjoyment in that that I’ve never known, and probably never will. Hatcher told us once at the dinner table, “If you kids would chew your food better, you wouldn’t eat so much,” and I took it to heart—to the amusement or annoyance of my eating companions ever since.
In the last few years I have given up having the feeling of a stomach filled to capacity for health reasons, but there are many who value their pleasures above health and longevity—it’s all in your history and how your brain is wired.
Of course, everyone’s history evolves with the passage of time. Tastes can change, and even the brain’s wiring is somewhat flexible.
Water Hurrying, Boulders Not Hurrying
