Beauty in the Large and the Small

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

This past week we spent three days in Florence. It is a gorgeous city steeped in art and history. The Medici, who ruled the city for 300 years, placed enormous value on art—particularly painting, architecture, and sculpture. They used their vast wealth to bring the greatest artists from around Italy to Florence, where they could create masterpieces and experiment with new techniques. It’s not an overstatement to say that the Medici were the founders—or perhaps the midwives—of the Renaissance.

Everything about Florence is big. The statue of David is 17 feet tall and weighs 12,000 pounds. The Duomo, Florence’s famed cathedral, can hold 30,000 people and is one of the largest in the world. Its dome, designed and built by Brunelleschi, remains the largest masonry dome ever constructed. And the crowds in Florence are enormous as well. We were there during the first week in April—not even high season—but the crowds were impressive.

I’d call this phenomenon “big crowds to see big things.” Everyone has heard about the great sights in Florence, and they come in droves to experience them. The line to get into the Duomo stretched halfway around the building (we took a pass). Crowds on the Ponte Vecchio were so dense it was hard to get across. We waited in line for 20–30 minutes to enter the Boboli Gardens. Despite the crowds, we thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the beauty of this magnificent city—great works, great sights, great food, great city.

I’ve been reading about the life and teachings of St. Francis. Although I’m only at the beginning of what I hope will be an ongoing exploration, I’ve learned enough to know that he would not have thought much of these big, beautiful things. St. Francis found beauty in the small things and preached the importance of simplicity, nature, and faith through action. He didn’t like big churches, big titles, or showy deeds. He cautioned against the dangers of pursuing the “three P’s”: power, prestige, and persona.

I was thinking about him a few days ago while walking Koji first thing in the morning. In the past, I would have been in a bit of a rush. I always walked Koji early, right after getting up, which meant his walk was a chore to complete before breakfast, coffee, and getting to work. While I tried to use these walks to clear my mind and appreciate my surroundings, my thoughts were often elsewhere—focused on “big things” like an upcoming presentation, a meeting, or a deadline.

Big Sights & Scenes from Florence

My walks here in Italy have been different. There is no rush. There are few big things to worry about.

On this particular morning, Koji was very into sniffing. In the past this would have annoyed me. This time, I let him sniff to his heart’s content, which gave me time to appreciate the beautiful views from our hilltop property. This time of year there are wildflowers everywhere—yellow, orange, purple, and white. Whole fields are dotted with them, but they’re so small you miss them unless you stop and look closely.

Then, in the distance, I heard the faint tinkling of what sounded like cowbells. I would not have noticed them had I not paused in silence while Koji sniffed. As I searched for the source, I saw a flock of sheep grazing in the valley below. The bells were sheep bells, not cowbells. Mountains in the distance were snowcapped, and a layer of fog covered the valleys below. In the past, I would have missed this entire scene.

It was as much a masterpiece as any painting in a Florentine gallery. But unlike those in Florence, this one was mine to enjoy without the crowds. Its components were small, everyday things: flowers, fog, and sheep.

Scenes from Morning Walks with Koji

I loved Florence and will absolutely go back to see more. But there are two messages for me in these contrasting experiences. The first is that if we spend our time only seeking out the “big things”—great domes, statues, and famous paintings—we will miss the great works of art that exist everywhere in nature. They are not celebrated or recorded, but they are there for the taking if we only stop and look.

And therein lies the second message: these natural masterpieces are easily missed. We likely overlook hundreds of them every day when we are preoccupied with other things. Slowing down, even for a few moments, opens us up to appreciating the masterworks in our own backyard.

The rest of my life. Day 1

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Nothing feels different, but everything feels different.

Chapter 2 is what I am calling this.

I sit across the breakfast table from my husband, but my personal laptop is in place of my work one. There still feels like there are a million things to do. But honestly, not a single one of them really needs to be done.

Was it always like this? Meaning, did anything really ever need to get done?

My heart is beating and I’m racing against the clock—stuff to do… I have to remind myself that there is nothing to actually really do. Today, there will be no sound of bings and chimes to notify me of new emails, Teams messages, or upcoming meetings.

Each of those bings is accompanied (was accompanied—gosh, this will take getting used to) by a spike in alertness and heart rate. At this time of the morning (6:15—YES, Six Flipping Fifteen), my heart rate and anxiety were probably elevated a handful of times.

Whoa, writing that out sounds so unhealthy.
It is unhealthy. But I’ve been doing this for years.

Even when I was physically going into the office, I’d wake up around 5 a.m., and just thinking about the day ahead would spike my anxiety. Sometimes in a productive way, but often in a storm of worry about how to plan the day to squeeze the most out of it—for both home and work.

The drive in would be filled with thoughts, worry, plans, more plans. And once I had two kids—then suddenly four—that planning hit a whole new level: kazillion mode.

Things have been quieter in recent years with the kids out of the house and me working remotely. But the anxious habit stuck around. And so did the bings, dings, and mounting pressure of the average workday.

Not that long ago in a land not faraway

I remember back in 2002, my boss gave me access to her email because she found it overwhelming—she got up to 50 emails a day. I was floored. Fifty! I was getting maybe 10, mostly forwarded from her.

Now that number sounds almost quaint. If you get only 50 work emails a day in this era, you’re lucky.
Managing email has become its own professional skill.

Most of it? Nonsense. But stressful nonetheless.

I felt like I had to walk into each day in full armor, machete in hand, clearing the overgrown weeds before they even had a chance to stop growing. 90% of emails went straight to Trash. Of those, maybe 10% were actually important—but wading through the digital clutter? A waste. So I created workarounds, tasks, and filters.

OK—seriously, I’ve digressed. But wow. It’s all so absurd.

Getting Anyone’s Attention

You can’t count on someone seeing your email. Depending on how someone organizes their inbox (and I’ve seen some truly wild systems), they may never even notice your message.

Urgent? Tag it with an @? Add the exclamation point? All overused. All part of the noise.

So we escalate:
Teams. Work phone. Personal phone. Desk phone.
And all of it—every single one of those tools—comes with a sound, a vibration, a ding that makes your chest tighten and your focus scatter.

But Now…

I closed the door. I shut the laptop.
I walked away.

That’s why I’m sitting here this morning, coffee in hand, at a different computer.

And now I ask myself:
How long will this feeling of impending doom last?
(Not actual doom, of course—nothing I ever did was life-or-death. But that tight-chested feeling… it’s real.)

How long until I can simply be present?

I Want to Be Present

I want to be present in my life. I only get one.
And I’ve spent 49 years rushing through it.

I’m safe now. I don’t need to stress myself out daily.
If I live to be 100, I’m only halfway through.
How lucky is that?

I feel so grateful. So blessed.
And I don’t want to recreate the stressful life I just stepped away from.

It’s funny—I only found out a week ago that yesterday would be my last day of work. I didn’t dare dream about what’s next, out of fear I’d jinx it.

And now? The urge to plan the “what’s next” is already kicking in. But…
I don’t have to figure that out right now, do I?

There’s no rush.

I have the rest of my life—whether that’s a few hours or another 50 years.

Peace,
Esterina

On a Disjointed Life

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

This blog is mostly in response to one my husband Daren wrote a few weeks back: https://darenamd.wordpress.com/2016/07/23/on-the-value-of-rituals/

We did chat about it that day in a coffee shop, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. One of the reasons rituals are so meaningful is because they trace something back to its roots and honor it in its entirety. But nothing really exists alone in its entirety. Anyone who is Facebook friends with me (and paying attention) has probably seen the quote I’ve had on my profile for years:

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” — John Muir

I love that quote. I’ve used it in conversations and presentations in many forms. We can trace almost everything—including ourselves—back to the stars. We and everything around us are made of star stuff (thank you, Carl Sagan, for that one). If we really sit with that idea, it can feel like either nothing at all or complete chaos. But when we narrow our focus too much—when we isolate one piece—we lose sight of the beauty of how it all ties together. And we feel alone.

Our brains need to draw lines to make sense of things. But those lines also need to stop somewhere manageable so we can understand what we’re looking at. What I think is happening now is that the lines we draw are becoming smaller and smaller.

Take a shoemaker 150 years ago. He had a small shop in the center of town. People came to him for their shoes. He knew his customers. Everyone in that town had a role, and they supported one another through trade, barter, or money. There was a sense of connection—of being part of something whole.

That shoemaker made each pair from start to finish. He knew where the materials came from and how they came together. Every stitch, every sole—his hands touched all of it. When he walked through town, he saw his work on people’s feet. There was pride, connection, and meaning. Making shoes was a ritual. The lines were drawn around the whole process, and that process was tied to community and to people.

Then machines came. Assembly lines broke the process apart—not just for shoes, but for nearly everything. The lines became smaller. Instead of making a shoe, someone made a sole. Or hammered the same piece over and over. The ritual was lost. The connection to the final product faded.

Supply chains expanded. We no longer see what we make or who it serves. Many people leave their towns, commute long distances, and spend their days doing work they feel little connection to. Ironically, as the world becomes more connected, we become more disconnected—from what we do, from where things come from, and from each other.

I love Daren’s example of the record player. Playing music used to be a ritual. There was anticipation in setting it up, in placing the needle, in waiting. That effort made the experience richer. Now, with every song available instantly, I don’t enjoy music the same way.

The same goes for coffee. There was something meaningful in grinding beans and making it by hand. The waiting was part of the enjoyment. Now we grab coffee from a drive-through or a machine, often without even thinking—sometimes multiple times a day. And somehow, it feels like less.

Our on-the-go lifestyle has started to strip the pleasure out of everyday life. We’re less connected to what we do, to what we consume, and to the people around us. We start to see ourselves as separate instead of part of a whole.

Unless you own your own business, many of us feel little connection to the mission of our work. We become parts in a machine, disconnected from the outcome—and sometimes from our own humanness.

I see it in myself. I walk through the VA facility where I work, passing patients in the hallway, and sometimes I experience them as obstacles—something in the way of where I need to go next. Already late. Moving quickly. It’s only when something interrupts my routine—like having to go to another floor—that I notice the waiting rooms, the check-ins, the people. It’s only then that I remember I work in a hospital.

That feels like a symptom of something that’s gone wrong.

I wasn’t around in the days of the shoemaker, but I’ve experienced enough of the “in-between” to feel the shift—record players, cassettes, CDs… even watching my mom grind coffee beans at the store and then make coffee at home. There was more presence in it. More enjoyment.

Now everything is faster, smaller, more efficient. But to what end?

We’re doing more and more, faster and faster. But are we actually enjoying it more? Are we happier?

I’m not.

And maybe I’m not alone.

I don’t think this means rejecting the world we live in—but maybe it means choosing, in small ways, to step out of the rush. To slow down where we can. To reconnect with process, with ritual, with the bigger picture.

I find myself wanting that more and more.

Less speed. More meaning. More connection.

A return—not backwards—but inward.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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