Slow Travel, Slow Talk, Slow Food

Yesterday, I spent the whole morning researching  freighter travel. Here is a lovely and  strangely-translated-into-English description from one site. I offer it as an unedited found poem by anonymous:

What is the attraction of the horizontal wideness of freighter travel?
What is the allured depth of the seemingly monotonous sea landscape on a Cargo Ship Cruise?
The answer is as simple as deep:
it is the switch from our fast moving daily routine to the unknown.
Far away from mobiles and internet, away from time pressure and private commitments
you will find a new way of calmness.
It may sounds emotional, but this stopping process of calming down
is one of the first steps of finding your inner peace.
Spending days of watching the diversity of the horizon and oceanic landscapes
creates on one hand an intoxicating, meditative feeling of freedom.
On the other hand, standing on deck it helps you to let the wind
blow all your worries of your daily routine away.
While the rest of the world takes part
on the daily game of efficiency, speed and peak performances,
travel will give you an authentic feeling of the wideness of the planet.
Slowly, destinations will come up and pass by.
Travelling like this becomes a journey to the inner self.
In the far distance, we can get close to ourselves…

Passenger travel on cargo ships is known as Slow Travel. Then today, I experienced Slow Talk. In my three dimensional mailbox, I received a genuine handwritten letter, the old-fashioned kind of long distance talking called correspondence by post. It was from a childhood friend whose familiar penmanship brought me heartwarmingly into her presence. Tomorrow I will experience one more kind of slow.  I plan to eat at Homegrown, an Asheville restaurant that proudly offers delicious Slow Food.

So what do Slow Travel, Slow Talk, and Slow Food have in common? An immensely wealthy sense of having all the time in the world– for eating, for friendship, for exploring the planet. Doesn’t it relax your whole body, just to reflect on such a measured, easygoing, unhurried pace?