I lay awake on the bottom bunk in my tiny Swedish cabin, the glow of the midnight sun lighting its shoebox-sized windows. I stared up at the slats criss-crossing the top bunk, just like I used to stare up at my big sister's bunk, her Holly Hobbie bedspread hanging off the side.
I'd spent another day walking through the Swedish countryside. Past grazing cattle, just like the cows at the dairy farm alongside my childhood neighborhood. Past giant red barns, just like those on the windy country roads of my youth, different only in the absence of the Mail Pouch Tobacco logo painted on one side. Past burbling rivers, bigger versions of the creeks I rock hopped in with my beat-up sneakers. I’d been thinking about my grandparents. About my dad and mom taking us camping in the Kinzu of central Pennsylvania. About riding my big wheel down the hill, coming to a screeching halt in my gravel driveway.
Here's what wasn't running through my head: An angry client. A sneak attack email. A bill that was coming due. A delayed flight. A missed doctor's appointment. A repairman who wouldn't return my calls. A worry I couldn't shake.
None of that. Instead, memories and imagination blurred together in a lazy haze…
I hadn’t felt like this since I was a kid. Simply letting time pass without trying to squeeze every drop of productivity out of it felt a little like being weightless. Like I might drift away without responsibilities and deadlines anchoring me to earth.
I thought maybe the similarities between rural Sweden and western PA had activated my childhood state — a roving sense of freedom, lollygagging and, if I’m honest, a little boredom. But in a good way, a way that felt like an afternoon nap, or throwing pebbles into a pond, or a cat lounging in the sun…
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A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through a blog post when one of those brilliant, precise Japanese words snagged my attention: yoyu.
Room to breathe, the writer said. A sense of calm spaciousness.
Then this word I'd never seen in my life popped up again in Craig Mod's walking memoir about pilgrim trails in Japan. "The excess provided when surrounded by a generous abundance," he wrote. "It can be applied to hearts, wallets, Sunday afternoons, and more."
Holy s**t, that was it. That’s what my life felt like in Sweden, and when I was a kid.
Growing up in rural steel country, I had nothing but space. Time alone in my bedroom, reading Tolkien, Asimov, Jean M. Auel. Aimless wandering through the neighborhood, the creeks, the mall. Spontaneous Saturday night bowling with my friends. The spaciousness of my own thoughts as I swam lap after lap, methodically covering 5,000 yards every afternoon at swim practice.
Then I became a person who filled life to the brim.
I filled it with the box-checking my ambition required: business school, long hours, climbing the corporate ladder. I filled it with the activities of a go-getter: Ironman training, round-the-world travel, happy hours with friends. I filled it with all the minutiae of raising a family: lacrosse practice, grocery shopping, doctors appointments, playground visits.
I was like a pitcher left under an open tap, overflowing. It was a rich, full life; I was exhausted.
Yet for a while, it was everything I wanted. It was fun to somehow keep up with the punishing pace, to feel like Superwoman. That is, until my body couldn’t keep up.
In the winter of 2022, work was hectic. We were short one senior exec; another was out on medical. And we were in the full-tilt throes of a company-changing deal. I was stretched thinner than I'd ever been.
In the midst of the controlled pandemonium, I started to experience heart palpitations. Not the falling in love kind. The what-the-heck-is-this kind.
“I’m sure it’s no big deal.” I told my friend Mike, while asking for the name of his cardiologist.
“Well, either way, just get an appointment quickly,” was his worried reply.
Dr. M ordered a medley of cardiac favorites. An EKG. An echocardiogram. Then a stress test.
Of course, I forgot to bring gym clothes for the final treadmill torture session. The hiking boots I kept in my trunk would have to do. I peeled off my blazer and watched as the tech stuck electrodes to my chest and arms. I stepped on the moving belt, getting breathy as the incline rose one degree at a time. Then the speed picked up, until I was close to flying off the back and had to grab the handles.
The test over, I re-assembled myself and went back to work. Sweating.
My heart thankfully was fine. But that moment — marching uphill in my corporate blouse and slacks, feeling my heart flutter under my sternum as I tried to catch my breath, then rushing back to meetings — stayed with me. What was I rushing toward? When would I finally arrive? How much was too much? What was I unwilling to sacrifice?
For two years, I kept circling back to those questions. With each loop, I realized I couldn’t find the answers without space to think, to just be, to remember who I was underneath all the doing.
So I planned a pilgrimage. And I left the corporate world behind.
Six months later, in the Swedish countryside, I found yoyu again.
That was over a year ago. Now I'm back home, in a house full of kids and book manuscripts and endless maintenance tasks. As much as I’d like to, I can't replicate the endless summer afternoons of my childhood, nor the long days walking and thinking and watching birds and chatting with Swedes. Someone's gotta run the house, pay the mortgage, snake the drains. Someone's gotta tend to these two almost-adults as they countdown to launch.
Here's what I can do: Linger. Dawdle. Fart around. Say no to invitations that don't appeal. Make room for noticing, serendipity, and calm.
So a couple weeks ago, I arrived at the airport early. My gate was in a dead-end section I have never been to before; nothing looked familiar. No international destinations, no giant windows, no stream of passengers flowing like a river through the main hall. Instead, the gates were labeled by a logic I couldn’t grasp — A1C, A2B — and departing to a scattershot array of destinations: Savannah, Scranton, Albany, Ithaca.
It was people-watching paradise.
I savored my portable oatmeal as I let my eyes wander. To my left was a grandma with an orchid flower pin in her hair, light orange against her jet black bun. To my right, a high-energy mom keeping her gaggle of kids corralled, handing them each goldfish crackers in tiny plastic bags. Ten yards in front of me, a guy with curly hair was down on one knee, fishing a box out of his backpack. I cocked my head sideways and squinted to read its contents: LEGO Star Wars: 327th Star Corps Clone Troopers Battle Pack.
I giggled with equal parts delight and disbelief as Storm Troopers scattered across the airport leather seats and a Spider Droid reared up to do battle. Paying attention had somehow dropped me in an alternate, hilarious universe.
Eighteen months ago, I would have been checking emails, stress-eating a bacon-egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwich while power-walking to my gate. Sweating.
I would have walked right past this guy and his LEGO battle without seeing any of it.
Yoyu isn't a destination you reach and stay at forever, but it’s also not a memory you can’t ever return to. It's a choice you make over and over. Some days I nail it — like that people-watching morning. Other days I'm back to stress-eating and sweating.
But now I know that even just 30 minutes of downtime in a weird corner of the airport can bring me back to the kid, and the pilgrim, who had nothing but time. No time machine or trip to Sweden to see the midnight sun required.
To finding your yoyu,
Sue
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