The Urgent Does Not Leave Time for The Important
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I don’t remember ever setting off fireworks. As a child, we’d get little sticks that fizzled for a few minutes. Sparklers that were difficult for even children to use to set themselves on fire.
My dad would drive us to a spot in the city to watch the fireworks from a distance, but I never found it as exciting as my siblings. Too loud, too bright, too much. The thrill I got wasn’t from the show but from the dark.
Being out and about at night still feels like a sweet adventure to me. Grabbing milkshakes? Great.
Grabbing milkshakes at midnight when everyone but the weary staff at the diner have gone to bed? Priceless.
Spent the summer of 2021 ping-ponging between my parents’ house and a friends’ up the street with small stops at the chain-link-fence-encircled park in the middle. Took a whirl-wind trip in June where I ate scrumptious meals I hadn’t prepared, sobbed at the sight of the ocean like a long-lost friend, and couldn’t stop touching the people I love.
We crammed five of us onto a couch made for two because who needs personal space after drowning in it for a year. Arms crooked into arms, legs thrown over laps, our hands sought each other as we walked side-by-side, as if our fingertips needed constant reminders that we’re here. we’re alive. I’m so glad you made it.
Last month, a friend of mine with a penchant for whisky sours, witty innuendos, and shaking his head at “how things are going” introduced me to the comics of Mafalda Frases. The character of Mafalda is a humorous Argentinian girl drawn in a Charlie-Brown-esque style with a quote that stuck with me.
“Como siempre: lo urgente no deja tiempo para lo importante”
Loosely translated, “As always, the urgent does not leave time for the important.”
I’m a country girl living in the city. A cat person living with a husky and a pitbull. A barefoot wanderer who works to pay the bills and dreams of a small cottage with a garden by the ocean. Travel keeps me open, sane. Bits of my heart live on 6 continents and in 38 states, and travel lets me connect the pieces, at least for a few days. Beautiful.
