I just spent a heavenly week with my family. A week, that felt like ice cream sundaes and warm summer breezes. Slow, delicious days, like honey dripping off a spoon. Away from work, deadlines, and social media. We went to parks, saw a movie at the theatre, went out to lunch. Swam in the pool. We spent a whole day on an island. Snorcheled, took a boat ride, and got sunburned. We went to the zoo and let the world fly by on carousel rides. Cooked nice dinners together, our dining nook turning into an imaginary 3- Michelin star restaurant. We soaked up life by the minutes, one rolling into the next, a constant flow of sweet moments strung together by love and ease.

At first, it was so incredibly hard to set my phone down and not constantly check it for messages, and updates. It was almost like a reflex – a swift hand motion to participate in the happenings on my phone. Mindless staring at what is mostly noise, created by big companies and random websites. While life is rushing by. Like sitting at the train station waiting for your train to arrive and being so immersed in virtual realities that you keep missing the train you’ve been wanting to go on. (Add a bit of bluish-green to the shadows of this mental image to make it feel sadder, more lonely. Taken with a slow shutter speed to show the motion of the trains. Newspaper on the ground. Soft, yellow glow of the lights.)

By the end of the week, I often didn’t even know where my phone was. I am now almost hesitant to tap on that little rainbow-colored camera icon. Not because of the people on the other side -my friends, my community – but because I know I will have to fight hard to not get sucked into the blurriness of ads and manicured content to cater to my ‘wants and needs’. Content that tells me I am missing out if I don’t have XY and Z. Getting caught up in the made-up. Made up, curated feeds of perfect lives. A whirlwind of the same songs, the same videos… Yet, underneath it – beauty. Woven into the depths of my feed, I see realness, I see art, I see people I love.

Sometimes, it takes slowing down to realize how much you needed a break. How busy life is. Or rather, how busy we make it for ourselves. We forget to pause and breathe. We forget the reason why we do it all. We lose sight of what truly matters. But I found it again. This week. In the eyes of my children.

I am not ready to give up the gentleness of drifting from one moment into the next. Carefree. Full of appreciation for the little things in life. Like when you were a child, blissfully unaware of time and the boundaries of routine. When the days were measured by sunup and sundown and everything in between was one big adventure. Sun rays between my fingers. Blurring my vision. The smell of freshly cut grass. Nowhere to be but here. Now.

Do you remember?