LIVING IN THE FAST LANE

Georgia’s parents always said she grew up a little bit fast. It wasn’t in her endeavors, or her desires but rather, Georgia was the fastest sloth in town, at least with her words. She had these lofty dreams, ones that could not be fulfilled in a community where even island time seemed too lengthy. At sloth school deep within the Costa Rican rainforest, Georgia was scorned for seeming too eager, though she did not respect the culture and speed of her ancestors, or at least, that’s how it was interpreted. Though her overseers and parents tried to explain a plethora of times, Georgia’s lack of patience always seem to get the best of her and she was constantly the butt of the joke, for she never stuck around long enough to hear the end of theirs. One particularly misty day, Georgia was clinging to a rainbow eucalyptus branch outside of the lane her community claimed as ‘slow territory’, when a fuzzy mass of glistening-chocolate-covered fur breezed past her and stopped a few branches ahead, sniffing the air and breathing heavy. Georgia sat still, as though her gray exterior would save her on this tree of infinite colors.

“Oh boy am I tired of all the monkey business”, spoke the wide-eyed youngster, hanging by clasped toes.

“well luckily for you, there’s no monkeys here”, replied Georgia, with a little smile of anticipation.

“I’m Sherman” said the little monkey, extending a hand to Georgia from across the eucalyptus.

She shot her arm out in excitement and almost lost her balance, digging her claws deep into the wood, rainbow shavings falling like rain. Sherman laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to be, ya know, a little slow”?

Georgia let out a sigh and readjusted so the branch sat beneath her as she steadied herself. Looking up at the splotched sky she thought, and with big intentions she murmured, “Us koalas are supposed to move like the gray clouds; slow and deliberately. We always seem to be waiting, and never moving with the sun. I like to chase it, always have and always will. I feel called to more than all this.” Georgia looked down, twiddling her claws and scratching her fur-brow.

Sherman stopped his incessant swinging and propped himself beside her.

“If I could slow down, I would. It’s not our way of life, but sometimes I want nothing more than to stop chasing the daylight and enjoy it’s healing powers over us, instead of constantly trying to catch it.”

Georgia thought long and hard about this conversation. She parted ways with Sherman but his words stuck around and she decided to play the part, to lean in and experience the world in a slower manner. She sat back in sloth class, and drew intentional spirals, white tracing the answers on the roof of her mouth. She became so acutely aware of the room, and the way the wooden log left imprints on her backside, even through her peach fuzz. When she left school that day, she headed back to the forest, and trudged through branches in hot air until she reached the land of Sherman’s kind—the monkeys. The concept of peace and quiet was completely unknown here. Squawks and oohs echoed off the stream and bounced off every stone, creating this vortex of noise that Georgia could only describe as ‘otherworldly’. Miraculously, she locked eyes with Sherman, and he made his way over with hesitancy.

“Wow, it’s loud”, Georgia commented, without realizing how loud she’d spoken.

Over a dozen of the monkey stopped their work and cocked their heads toward the odd pair. The colony cop’s aloud and pointed with scrunched noses, but their words were not understood by the young sloth.

“I can’t understand”, she told Sherman, with a slight undertone of failure in her commentary.

“I can’t understand them either, but when all you’ve ever known is noise, it becomes a part of surviving because, well, it’s all you know”, he said to her, steady and yet, sad.

Sherman seemed desperate for a life of slower pace. Georgia yearned for speed. They could not simply swap lives, for their strengths were different, and their kinds did not always associate for the immense difference in values between them.

Georgia and Sherman met daily between there to homes, where minutes became hours, and snacks became meals. They found a middle ground, where speeding up and slowing down varied between topics and reality sunk in. They could not change their own pasts, but could have conversations for a future that held a deliberate and consistent hand with one’s own capacity for life, and the speed by which they choose to approach it in any given season.