Rest

Isn't it crazy how the days fly by? It's already the end of July, and I feel as if I haven't taken a breath in months. Wait...that's not true. I take deep breaths here and there, glorious moments when life slows and I rest in its slowing. But entirely too rarely. I'm always looking forward to the next break. In the fall semester, I was doing my practicum alongside a full load of classes, so certainly the spring semester wouldn't be as busy. During the spring semester, I realized I had 6 big classes and took on an additional project for a professor, added a client or two, and then I think that summer will surely be time to sit on the porch, relaxing in the morning shade while drinking coffee late into the afternoon. Now summer seems just as busy as the last semesters, and I have a feeling the pace won't easily slow for the next forty years. Unless I stop it.

Right now I'm eager to jump into the next academic year, honest-to-goodness excitement. I have a good internship lined up, and while I'm nervous as heck (do I really know what I'm doing?), I think I'm prepared for the challenge. I've got a list of schools to which I'm applying for Ph.D. programs, and it's thrilling to have no idea where we might be in a year. I've also lined up some research opportunities at two schools in Chicago: Northwestern and DePaul. The reason for this was simple: Ph.D. programs look for research experience, and I felt like I was lacking in research experience. So I contacted some professors and researchers about volunteering in their research labs, and after some "No's," I got two "Yes's." That's exciting for me, and while again I'm terrified (just how long will it take the professors to realize I know practically nothing about research?), I'm ready to jump in. Might as well get used to looking dumb now, since it'll probably happen a lot in the next few years if I do go on for more schooling.

And while I'm happy with all of this and think it's fine and dandy, I still want to rest: walk slowly through the leaves rather than rush to my car, spend an hour or two over dinner with Joy rather than throw food down my throat while I look through the mail, look through old photographs, write a note to a friend, stop at the children's lemonade stand. If I'm not living life and resting in its pleasures, looking for beauty amidst the pain, loving others as I love myself, then any research experience, any Ph.D. program, any brilliant technique I use in a counseling session will be pointless.

With this said, tomorrow morning Joy and I leave with some wonderful friends to spend some time at a cabin on a lake. I've looked forward to this weekend desperately, five days of reprieve amidst friends and nature. Nothing is better than that, absolutely nothing. Waking up after breathing the woodsy air. Strolling out onto the dock, maybe throwing a line or two just to see if the fish want to bite. Walking back to get a book, or my wife, or just sit off the edge of the dock looking into the water and sky. Afternoons of laughter and fun, water skiing and wake-boarding, falling asleep on the boat. Evenings of campfires, board games, more laughter, maybe a tear. Five days with no need for a watch, phone, or computer.

"Nature's teaching is a healing. And although we must indeed be taught, it is the healing that we need most. We have been fractured. We have been broken off from the nature of our world, broken away from the nature of one another, broken apart from our own nature. The pain of this breach is so constant that we have become accustomed to it; it feels normal. The pain is with us every day, when we browbeat ourselves and others, when we struggle for control, when we draw circles around ourselves that shut others out, when we long for a connectedness we cannot find, when we try to help one another and it's never enough, and, perhaps most of all, when we go outdoors and feel that Nature is something different from us." (Gerald May, The Wisdom of Wilderness, 2006, p. 169).