Bogged Down in Bogland

 There are bogs in Nantucket. And I bogged myself down in one.

While bicycling around the island, my friend and I pulled over next to a cranberry bog. Kind of fascinated by this gnarly shrubbery, I said, "let's walk around the entire bog!" We had a brief discussion about whether we should walk around the whole thing, how much time would it take, bla bla bla.. and then started walking.

My friend discovered a few turtles nestled in the water and pointed out a hawk flying overhead. I would occasionally plop down in the grass, reach across the water and pick cranberries off the branches. Yum! So sour! Bugs skated lazily atop the water and we marveled at the individual colors seen up close: orange, burgundy, yellow, green, brown, all melding together from a distance. The sun warmed our skin and the air was quiet except for the barely perceptible sounds of rustling leaves and branches. Before we knew it, we had walked more than halfway around the bog.

This patch of earth seemed so nondescript until we really started looking at it.  Taking the time to walk around and see everything it held gave us an entirely new perspective. There were so many colors and textures, so much life that we wouldn't have noticed had we not slowed down to really see it.

Rushing through life, we miss so much. We live in information overload and read in snippets on our devices. We text instead of having an actual conversation. We eat meals in our cars. We swipe left or right without even reading the description. We have the attention span of gnats.

As I bogged myself down in bogland, I thought of how much I don't really see as I rush through life. Sometimes I just need to bog myself down. To pull over, put down the smartphone, look around and really see where I am. To look at it all, and to feel it, and smell it, and savor it.

Last week I took the time to get bogged down. I'll be doing that a lot more often.

©Catherine Borowski 2017
www.celebratingwealth.com

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