A reminder to slow down and enjoy the view

My youngest son is in 8th grade this year, which means this is our family’s last year at the school where he's been since kindergarten. Since his older brothers also attended this school, we’ve been there for 12 years. 

So I’m finding myself, as I often do with him, wondering how we got to this stage so quickly.

When our two older boys were younger, we often wanted to speed things up. When are they going to sleep through the night, crawl, walk, be toilet trained? By the time my youngest came around, I realized how fast it goes and tried to treasure the earlier steps and not rush them. And wouldn’t you know it? He did many things earlier than the other two, likely because he was trying to keep up with his older brothers.

So here we are today, with our oldest son turning 18 this summer, his younger brother learning to drive and his youngest brother joining him at high school next year.

It’s not just the boys - I’m very aware that my life is also going so quickly. Not to be morbid or anything, but we don’t really know how much time we have here and every moment is precious. 

Am I using my moments in the best way possible? I don’t know. Is the time I spend putting together this podcast and my songs really the best use of my time? I don’t know. I just feel like it was something I wanted to try so here I am at episode 14. My goal is to share one original song a week throughout 2024 and now we’re already finishing the first quarter of the year. 

I’m very grateful that I have found time over the past few years to write and record songs. This would have been incredibly difficult to do when my sons were younger and I don’t take it for granted that I’m able to spend some of my time doing it now. 

There are so many distressing things happening in the world and so many people going through difficult times, whether it be illness or war or other challenges, that the fact that I can even spend any time working on songs is a tremendous blessing.  Finding the time can still be a challenge, between work, family time and other things that come up during life, but I’m still grateful for that time. If anyone comes across this podcast and feels encouraged or entertained for a few minutes, then I feel like this time spent will be worth it.

The song that I’m sharing this week I wrote last year during a Songtown lyric writing master class with Marty Dodson. 

It was a great class and one of the things I learned was the idea of moving a song along between verses and not just saying the same thing differently in both verses, which I now notice in some of my older songs. I don’t know if I succeeded in this particular song, but it’s something that I keep in mind now while writing.

For this song, I wrote the lyrics first and then wrote music to it in Logic Pro. After bringing it to a songwriting workshop, one suggestion was to change the pronouns in the song. Changing the pronouns within a song is usually something to avoid because it can be confusing for the listener, but in this case, I was told, it would work because I’m not introducing a new character in the song, but just switching to the universal “you.” However, I ended up switching from first person to “we” then to “you” so hopefully that still works. Let me know. 

This song is called “Slow Down” and it’s about trying to enjoy where you are in the present moment and not be in a rush to get where you’re going. 

The first verse is about how we may often be mindlessly running around from here to there, trying to get everything done and before you know it, a year has passed by. The second verse is about the importance of enjoying the moment because once it passes, it’s gone and before you know it, years pass by.

So this week’s song is just a reminder to slow down to take a moment to appreciate where you are. Listen here.

If you think someone else would enjoy this, please share it with them, thanks!  

Slow Down

I’ll grab my keys, I’m running late
Hit the gas and accelerate
Racing around from here to there
Until daylight disappears

And the year flies by

I gotta slow down, enjoy the view
Catch my breath, think it through
I need to take my time to make it count
As the world rushes ’round
I gotta slow down

Slow down

In this life, we get one chance
Once it’s gone, we can’t get it back
Day by day, time slips away
Tomorrow turns into yesterday

And the years fly by

We gotta slow down, enjoy the view
Catch our breath, think it through
We need to take our time to make it count
As the world rushes ’round
We gotta slow down

Slow down, enjoy the view
Catch your breath, think it through
Take your time to make it count
As the world rushes ’round
You gotta slow down

© Leisah Woldoff