Walking along the Mid State Trail, I was overwhelmed by the warm, sweet, scent of honeysuckle. Not just here and there, but along the whole trail. We are camping in honeysuckle season and it is everywhere. It's utterly pervasive, and I'm glad to be here.
I'm glad, too, to be on campsite where life slows to a crawl, and time seems to change. "What time is it?" becomes a meaningless question. You rise when you are rested. You sleep when you feel tired. You eat and drink as needs arise. Exercise is a joy and not a chore. Though I have to say it takes a while to unwind. Your initial temptation is to ask, "What shall we do now? What's next?" You check your calendar and to-do list. There's nothing there. It feels somewhat weird. Its strangeness is likely because, try as we might, life too quickly gets out of balance—too much activity, fret and worry, and not enough rest and stillness. The "nothing-much-to-do" of a campsite is restorative.
I'm also glad because on the campsite people are just plain friendly. Everyone waves as you pass. Folk walking their dogs stop to pass the time of day. If anything does go wrong, or amiss, people will gather to help out. The rattle-snake spotted on a path that families take is protected, with kindly guards posted each end of the path to avert anything nasty. People are nice. I think it's because as you unwind, and worries and cares lift, your system alters, and your behavior changes. You move from the endless and frantic sympathetic response to the more gentler, and hence kindly, parasympathetic.
It occurred to me that the friendliness of the campsite is like the pervasive odor of the honeysuckle. It's everywhere, and you can't escape it. Another word for it is civility. And civility reigns on the campsite.
I've been reading Christine Porath's Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace (New York: Grand Central, 2016). I'm reading it along with a bunch of senior colleagues at the college for an upcoming retreat. Porath presents impressive data to demonstrate that civility has so many more benefits than incivility in the workplace, but also generally among family and friends. Civility greases the wheels of life. My takeaway from the book was to consider again the values of kindness, consideration, and respect. Though Porath does not take her argument in a Neo-Aristotelian or Confucian direction, my thoughts moved that way. If civility is so important, and if kindness, considerations and respect are fundamental to civility, then we become more kind, considerate, and respectful through baby steps; each day doing little kind, considerate, and respectful actions toward others. In time, through habituation, you become a kind, considerate and respectful person, and the world becomes a little better. If it's not stretching it too far, your fragrant "honeysuckle of civility" will be pervasive. And that would be a good thing.
Now, what's next? Ah, I remember, nothing much at all.
+Ab. Andy