I can finally admit I am “slowing down.” After having a conversation with my much younger sister, Nina (four years younger), I realized that we are both “slowing down.”  I had been dubbed the “Energizer Bunny” by Dena Westerman when she observed me at Mills Elementary School.  Then there were the years in the yarn shop, as counselor at Liberty and as a volunteer at Rancho Benicia, the Friendship Club, Liberty High School and the Benicia Unified School District.  The years when I did at least three things in a day- a meal with a friend, exercise, shopping- all in one day.
In my conversation I explained to Nina that I hadn’t returned her phone call for several days because it was so difficult to take out my cellphone, tap the open button, hit my code to open my apps, select the phone icon, find her name in my list of contacts and strike her entry thus causing me to connect with her phone.  I preceded to explain that if we still had rotary phones, you know the ones where you had to dial each digit of someones phone number, that she might not have heard back from me for a week.  The effort being more than I could handle.
It was during that important phone call that I realized I was slowing down.  Now slowing down means many different things.  It means you don’t have to rush around to get things done.  The upside is you can savor everything you do.
In a former life I ran through my morning rituals and out the door.  Now I may not make it out the door that day saying to myself, “Gee, I never left the house today.”  When rising that very day I decided whether or not to shower, whether or not to put on make-up, whether or not to get out of my pajamas.  I would think through my day deciding if I needed anything at the store, any errands I needed to attend to and any time I would be seeing another human being which would necessitate putting on make-up, combing my hair, or getting out of my slippers.*  You know those flannel slip-on pants that have been so popular? The ones that look like pajama bottoms? They are pajama pants. The people wearing them are in the slowing-down club, and sometimes they are teenagers who never got to speed up yet.
There is a caution in slowing down too much.  I loved the scene in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in which he visits both sets of grandparents.  The four of them are in bed together when Charlie enters.  They never  bother to get out of bed.
Doris Laux is approaching her slowing-down time after taking the Trans-Siberian Railway and visiting Tibet last month.  She still works 30 hours a week with her accounting position. But she is giving up her volunteer time to study languages starting with Latin.  I see the symptoms of this progression.
It is a time when priorities shift and reassessment of what is precious in life becomes known to you. What gets me out the door these days are my friends and family, my favorite activities, and the pleasure of greeting the day. Slowing down may mean waking up.

Ellen Blaufarb is a marriage family therapist.

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