If I ask you to *pause* and *stay a while* right now, can you?

I’m on a staycation and sitting here in the lobby of the hotel, the sitar music pulls you into a feeling — a place where time stands still. truly. Just for a moment, or two, or three.

The timeless wooden-panelled-floral-print couches that have flowers engraved on the wood on the sides ask you to just — sit; to be still; to pause — theher ja1. They themselves sit like they have sat here firmly for years, holding many conversations on them as travellers come and go multiple times throughout the day.

They belong to no one but to everyone who passes through here — holding time in a chokehold. Still. Like a tree. Rooted, where they are, as they hold countless stories — one of a tired mother and a exhilarated child taking respite from a hot summer day spent at the swimming pool, or a young focused woman clicking away at her laptop as she prepares her presentation deck for the company’s big retreat, or a grey-haired older man just waiting patiently on his wife to come back from the wedding shopping exhibition set up around the corner from the restaurant as he spends some time people-watching in the lobby.

Still. Be still. Just for a moment or two or three, the couch says.

The couch implores you — to come and take a break or make it your home for just a minute (just like the mosquitoes have, iykyk the Indian spring and mosquitoes season) .

Because what represents home is just a firm feeling of support. Even if it is just for a minute in the chaotic urgency of all the days.

The sitar lulls you into believing that time can stand still — even as everyone else rushes around you; the world rushes around you.

You can stand still.

Fursat2 — feels real here — like it always existed — but kinda like a secret garden — you need to want to see it and find it.

I wonder if the couch could talk — what stories it would tell. It is a keeper of the stories and time and people & support & the feeling of home.

Maybe it will ask us some questions, questions like:

What if you made fursat the aim of your holiday? If you did that, have you ever wondered what would you see? Truly see?

Rather, have you wondered all that you missed/did not see in all your holidays because your holiday was just another to-do list disguised as fun — it was fulfilling, yes, but it is still a list and still lacking the one thing that could elevate a holiday into a spiritual experience — fursat / presence.

Because fursat is about presence. The ability to just be in the moment — to just exist and to let that be enough. To let you feel enough in just existing.

Can you do that?

These were the questions it had for me. Can I manage a holiday with no to-do list of things to see/do, no agenda and no dissociating with screens. Just existing in this moment. Not escaping it, not escaping anything - the mundaneness of life, the responsibilities or the boredom of it all. And doing this for as long as it takes to get completely still and completely present or for as long as you need.

What if just for a moment there was no clock ticking?

In that case, what would you see in this moment?
What would you feel in this moment?
What would you hear in this moment?
What would this moment feel like?

If you stopped performing your self and just let the soul — the consciousness within you lead you for a moment, what would you want to do on a holiday?

What are the most minutest of details that you can take in in this moment you took for a moment?

Who do you become when all of the rush and time and to-dos fall away? Because isn’t that who you actually are?

And you can even time yourself in this process, if you feel you ‘don’t have the time to slow down’.

And once you have completed this little exercise of presence and fursat, tune into how did it feel? And how long did the moment actually take? (because trust me, you’ll be surprised how short that time even when it felt long)

And then you’ll find that the more you slow down, the more you’ll want to slow down.

So pause. Just for a moment. Or two. Or three.

And then, apply this fursat exercise to your daily life - even if just for five minutes.

fin.

Welcome to the fursat forest, I’m Shubhi — slow soul, artist, slow +cute things maker at basaisehi.com — living slowly, intentionally and with presence in the culturally beautiful Lucknow, India and building and spreading joy through my art and handmade stationery. In an increasingly divisive world that rewards rush and urgency, I think living slow and practicing presence and joy each day is resistance.

At Forest Fairy, I am on a quest to live a slow and soulful life of a forest being in this ever-demanding, always-rushing world and share with you the realities of choosing to go slow (trust me it ain’t easy!) and the wonder of it too! Because slow living is not an Instagram-aesthetic trend, but a real choice to choose a simpler life rich in wonder, time and being rather than chasing ideals of success that society defined for you.

Follow me into the Forest, if you’re tired of running an imaginary race the world put you in and you don’t even remember why! May the wild softness of fursat find you! ♡

🌲🌳🌲🌳