This I Believe

I was driving in my car, thoughts racing, wheels spinning, tachometer red lining. My mind echoed like a junior high band tuning their instruments. Deadline drums pounding against my temples. Flat flutes and sharp saxophones clamoring against a cavalcade of clarinet confusion and worry. In a word – stress! I reached into the center console and into a bag of mixed nuts. Grabbing a handful I shoved them into my mouth, spilling most onto my lap. I cursed and reached down to retrieve the run away nuts.

Intending to grab them all at once I managed only a single almond. Placing it in my mouth, I was able for the first time to notice its slightly bitter taste. Reaching down for another I grasped a walnut. The walnut seemed a little sweeter. Up until now I had always grabbed some random combination of nuts, never tasting them individually, consuming without thought, without experience, without sensation.

Reaching down again I toke hold of a peanut this time and placed it gently in my mouth and noticed the remnant of its sheath. My mind slowed down and I began to feel the vibration of the steering wheel as it connected me to the street; I listened to drone of the exhaust ebbing and flowing in tandem with my foot on the accelerator, panging back to the throaty growl of the thrush mufflers of my youth. The trees which in the past whizzed by my passenger window now waved in what seemed like slow motion as I spotted them from my windshield and followed them along the road inviting them into my day. I noticed individual leaves, some a drooping green, a few yellow and others a brilliant red. I reached again grabbing a Brazilian nut. It tasted exotic, distant and absolutely, uniquely its own.

I have always raced to keep up with life, hoping to some day get ahead in life, love and happiness, but always ending up exhausted and unable to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Then in one beautiful Autumn drive to work I realized through a bag of mixed nuts that I could slow life down to my own accord. This I believe v live your life one peanut at a time.