Every region or language seems to have an expression that doesn’t quite translate perfectly. Certainly the words can be, but something in the meaning just doesn’t quite hit the right note.
Lately as the necessity of recent days has removed many distractions from my path, I keep coming back to a phrase I came to know in Quebec. Tranquillement pas vite – which literally means quietly not fast.
I remember a former supervisor of mine using this a lot. Back when I worked in the film industry, the days were long, stressful, and full of noise and hurry. Tempers flashed over, disappearing as fast as they erupted. No matter what department you were in the cycle of work-sleep-work obliterated all reasonable sense of time and the insane pay removed all perspective of the real world.
Once and awhile though, there would be the chance of a more leisurely approach, and my supervisor would tell us “les filles, aujourd’hui nous travaillons tranquillement pas vite” – “Girls, today, we will work quietly not quickly.” The pace slackened, the mood lightened, and we just slowly and methodically got on with our day. A convivial spirit arose and although still tired when the lights went out, it was free of all the surging cortisol of our usual days.
It seems this year we are being told to go quietly not fast, and many (although not all) are heeding that call. Out of care and concern for each other, a slowness to our usually busy lives has taken over. Families are reconnecting, rules are changing, and we are learning to accept waiting in lines or the new, slower, ways of navigating the outside world. Many of us are moving with care and attention, not to benefit ourselves, but to protect the more vulnerable of those among us. Our focus is sharpened with real priorities coming into sharp relief.
Yes, I do miss some of the hectic former days, but I am grateful for the reminder that we are truly interconnected. The irony of electronic networking and social media is that we lost the greater connection we have to one another. We moved too fast to realize that we are ultimately connected to every one else, and that our actions and in-actions do have an impact on the greater whole. This year we have been reminded that slowly and quietly we DO and CAN make a difference to how our collective future will play out.
I recently joked that perhaps the ancient Mayans were just off by a couple of years when they predicted that 2012 was going to be an important year. Not the doomsday that many interpreted, but the ending and beginning of the way we look at the world. So the end of a paradigm rather than the literal end of the planet. Because it seems to me at least, that 2020 can mark the start of profound awakening. We only have to work at it, though, tranquillement pas vite.