The other day, when leading a mindful eating practice, a participant shared how the flavor of a small square of dark chocolate lingered on her tongue long after she’d swallowed it.
Doing so not only allowed her to savor the sweetness of it but also the joy of eating it far more than she usually would.
Her insight points to something we forget in our daily hustle: there’s so much beauty and pleasure in lingering.
Staying with it
Staying with the flavor of chocolate on your tongue, tracing the arc of a sparrow in the sky until it’s out of sight, or listening to the last note of a song until it fades into silence, enhances our appreciation and enjoyment of those experiences – as long as we’re not clinging to them.
Lingering also gives us a sense of completion.
When I finish a piece of writing, staring at the page for a few moments longer gives me a sense of well-done fulfillment I’d otherwise miss if I leaped up from my desk and moved on to the next task.
I feel the same if I stay with an emotion – even a challenging one, such as sadness. Being with sadness until it runs its course lets me gather any information it may offer me about my life. Instead of compounding the pain of it through avoidance or distraction, I’m left with a sense of resolution, even poignancy for having felt it at all.
We don’t linger much – on anything – these days.
The Increased Pace of Life
We hurry and rush, truncating experiences so we can move on to whatever comes next. We cut conversations short or stand up from the dinner table before the last dish gets cleared.
The pace of our lives has undeniably sped up, leaving us with seemingly little time to spare.
Arianna Salazar-Miranda, an assistant professor of urban planning and data science at the Yale School of the Environment, recently analyzed recorded pedestrian behavior in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. Her team compared data from the late 1970s to 2010. What they discovered is that we’re literally moving faster.
Walking speed had increased by 15 percent. Lingering? Cut in half. As a result, fewer people nowadays interact in groups or spontaneously with each other.
Miranda’s research suggests that moving through our days as if we’re on a conveyor belt comes at a social cost. We miss out on the connections that are so vital to our well-being.
The other day, while taking a walk before hunkering down at my desk to work, I ran into two neighbors.
One complained about a drain that was leaking rainwater into his garage; another told me she was off to see the doctor. These weren’t momentous interactions, but as I listened and connected with my neighbors, I realized that making time for them is what my sense of community and belonging is built upon.
The Art of Lingering
To linger requires us to stay longer in a place or a moment, and resist the tug and pull to launch ahead into the next event.
Of course, there are times I don’t need to linger. I never want to stay in an airport bathroom longer than I need to.
But practicing lingering is a worthy and mindful experiment.
The next time you find yourself abruptly moving on to the next experience before the current one is truly over, take a few moments to savor the experience.
Hug your friend a little longer, enjoy that last sip of coffee, and go ahead and let out a sigh of grateful relief as you ease yourself into your favorite chair before opening a book or turning on the television.
Pause and notice what you discover when you linger.
On My Mind
A couple of years ago, I took a course called a “Year to Live,” based on the work of Stephen Levine. The course is about living consciously with the knowledge that one day you’ll die.
Morbid? Not at all.
It, along with the group of friends from the course I continue to study with, keeps me focused on the here and now – and more often than not, appreciative of the life I’m living.
It’s easy to keep death at a distance – my mind likes to gloss over such details – but I’ve found that keeping the knowledge of my imminent death close helps me make the most of things – even the hard stuff or things I don’t like.
I recently had a fence built that I didn’t like, but I reminded myself that it was just wood and money. This morning, I heard a parrot squawk – a wild one flying overhead in my urban Los Angeles neighborhood! And even though it was late and I was still a bit full from dinner, I ate a bowl of popcorn anyway. It was delicious.
The poet Mary Oliver says all of this far more elegantly than I can.