For a life in Adagio

I long for the time to savor hugs, get lost in the scent of the other, of the wool they are wearing, of their body, without pats on the back signalling that it's time to split. A warmth that tastes like home, soft, with closed eyes, is never enough. There should be a law stating that if you have not had at least one savored hug by 3pm, you are excused from work to go look for it.

The time to cook dinner, without easy take-aways. Baking bread, pizza, pasta. Fixing socks, sweaters; learning to knit to craft yourself a hat that warms your head with your effort and patience.

I would love us all to review our priorities: family, friends, and nature at the top; work down a the very bottom; and all material trinkets even more at the bottom, underground. That we did not evangelize for a slower lifestyle and yet expect our trainee to be the first in the office and the last out. That each squabble, each meeting, each investment, each laundry, each grocery shopping came after human relations. That relations were our most valuable thing, and that we realized how much we can hurt our neighbours by just neglecting them. Above all, that those of us who say "I don't think nature is anything special" laid 15 minutes on the sidewalk of the freeway, without headphones, and decide if it is more of that which they want, or more of the pointlessly relaxing, boringly green, uncomfortably soft useless nature.

I would love us to stop trying fitting together a dinner after a snack after a lunch, with three different people, breaking the conversation with each just to go to the next, and coming back home exhausted even on "holidays". Instead, spending the afternoon with a friend, talking about life, making cookies. That us who say we'd gladly ditch the car, but then how can we get the kid to judo, buy sushi at the nice chinese place out of the way, pay grandma a visit, get the grassmowner from the store, understood that that's exactly the point: not doing a thousand things, and living every day slower, more adagio.

I would like us to overcome the need of going far away to do something special during the holidays, and being fullfilled by our daily life.

That when somebody comes to us saying they are thinking of starting practicing yoga, and we reply that there is an app for that, as much as there is one for the grocery shopping you then don't have to do anymore, one to read summaries of books you then don't have to do read anymore, one to identify the plants you then don't have to learn to recognize, and also one for the sex you then don't have to do anymore, I wish us to feel the warmth of human proximity. That we don't prefer virtual experiences over real ones, and that we remember that feeling the grass on our face is a privilege, not a hassle.

I'd love us to overcome the enthusiasm of going to Vienna by train rather than by plane, and simply stopped going altogether. That countries financed life in adagio, rather than bulimic fast paced tourism. That instead of planting 50 wind turbines in the middle of the sea, they encouraged us to wash cutlery and clothes once less, to do without the Roomba, the crystal stemware, the second bathroom, the AC perpetually at 20 degrees.

Those of us who have once had a hard time understanding what somebody is describing, and asked them if they can't just google it and show us a picture. They told us they don't have a smartphone, we looked at them with the gravest face in the world and replied "god bless you", and then proceeded to post the picture of our dish on Twitter. To those of us, I wish at least one day in adagio.

That to us all be granted a life in adagio, and above all that its value be appreciated by us all.