Taking a Break May be the Best Thing You do Today
At a nearby park, I was doing a run interval when I stopped in my tracks to admire a stand of blazing yellow goldenrod (not to be confused with allergy-causing ragweed. They have different leaves and flowers, I promise). It was noon and ridiculously hot for early October in Atlanta. It’s hard to stop when you are in your workout zone, and cutting short a speed interval sorta defeats the purpose. However, the bold color and height of these flowers proved irresistible. Our parks feature natural plantings, and these goldenrods were attracting a lot of pollinators, mostly bees, and wasps.
The sun was so bright, I could barely see the photos I quickly caught with my phone. The scene looked a bit like our Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The winged flyers were doing intervals too, speeding then gliding, as they followed flight paths between all the flowers. The pollen was so heavy on the legs of the bees, it made them look like they had on boots. Two bumblebees picked the same flower and, surprised by each other, bounced off the appointed landing pad. The same two, seemingly angry, began a bee brawl, locked bodies in the air, and spun in a freefall to another flower before breaking apart.
In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
~ Gene Weingarten
This past year I did a career interval to update skills and complete a grad certificate in writing and digital communications. While in the program, I wrote a non-fiction narrative story on our college’s managed beehives and learned a lot about pollinators. It’s the wild bees, such as the ones I stopped on my workout to watch, that are in the most trouble. I was glad to see our parks program planted this stand of pollinator-friendly goldenrod.
I watched a few more seconds and then started back on the path to finish my workout. I do intervals a couple of days each week because I find they are an efficient way to obtain a great dose of cardio activity. Getting in some physical activity each week also just makes me happy. Taking a moment to watch the bees did too. Sometimes we avoid intervals and see them as an interruption to something we want to accomplish, but as with education or exercise, intervals can prove productive. An interval may be a space or distance between things or a break or pause in time. Today I experienced both.
