I suppose part of my growing up at the moment consists of realizing there is little or nothing I can do to fix things for people I love most. For my friend who is ill; for my friend who wants a different life; for my friend who lost a baby.
We women in my family are women of action, and my first response to disaster is to act quickly, patch things up, get down on my hands and knees and scrub floors until the spots are gone, spills have stopped, and everyone feels happy and things are as they were before. A sick child: I busy myself cleaning up vomit and bleaching the sinks and the door handles, confident that the child will become better; we'll spend most of our days without illness and the child, my child, will soon be helping themselves to butter and flooding the bathroom floor and leaving toys on the floor again.
But then there are the things that I just can't work through, the things that cannot be scrubbed clean or ironed out or simmered down.
As my ill friend told me, all we can do, when there is nothing else, is to pray. I don't know if there was a time when I thought God would fix things for me, but there is comfort in asking God all the same. I even feel presumptuous or silly asking for what I think is best, so instead I think the names of those I love for whom I cannot fix things, knowing that God, who hears my thoughts, also understands my longings. Deeply I feel that all will be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well--but in the meantime, in the worry, and in the waiting, waiting, waiting--there comes a point when busy work does not heal, and all I can do is open my hands in some sort of lopsided, trembling trust.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Stuff Rules--NOT
Ever since I returned from Seattle and from my parent's giant PARE-DOWN, I've had little patience for what seems like a tottering mountain of stuff falling down around our ears. I constantly get rid of things--there's always a bag filling on the back porch bound for Cherry Door Charity or Hidden Treasures (how hidden are your treasures? I'm trying to learn how to see the treasures and the trash through all the familiarity). I've been through the house, slipping things away into bags and trash cans (before the girls see it and decide they truly want that precious toy they've played with once or twice and not more). I had the feeling that our children had so much that they had no idea what to do with it all. And it's true--the less they have, the better and more happily they play. There's space suddenly.
"I will not be overcome!" I declared to Martin the other day. "I have to free myself from the tyranny of STUFF!" Right on, Martin says, but it's hard to keep up the pace on your own. You have to help me, I finally told him. So he sat himself down and we began in the sunroom.
"What's that?" he'd say, and I would pull something off a shelf, some boxes or maybe that tarnished silver tray I thought was so much fun when I bought it. "What is that?" he'd say, and I'd mumble some excuse for its existence in our house. "Get rid of it," he'd continue, with barely a shrug. "Really? My silver tray?" Suddenly: what's the significance of this silver tray? Zero significance. Bing! Bing! Bing! On goes the light. "Okay," I'd agree happily as I took it to a gathering place on the dining room table.
Out it goes! The more I do this sort of thing, the easier it gets to do. In fact, it's intoxicating to let go of all this excess. There's a funny sort of barrier that I have to get through--it's the barrier of thinking I care about something, about feeling owned partially by that thing--and then declaring my freedom. My dominance over that stupid silver tray. Out it goes.
I had a bout of this sort of freedom in odd circumstances at my parent's house. They went off to church and I stayed home with the masses of pictures and artwork they owned, faced with a tiny condo and artwork from Africa (very graphic), Asia (intricate, whimsical), and endless what-nots from around the world. And this was after two sortings that had squeezed the juice out of their metaphorical suburban orange and into a little distilled town existence--zest--the essence of their life's possessions. It was a quandary, though, how to make what was left over all work together. I was trying but I was somewhat aware it was a losing battle, and sure enough my mother breezed in from church and pooh-poohed my efforts. Well, this made me (slightly sleep-deprived, no shower) RATHER grumpy, and so she laughed and suggested we all stop and have a glass of wine.
And this is where things went a little balmy, for me at least. The wine made my mother jolly and relaxed. The wine made me aggressive and impatient with personal kindness. Just go through the box of pictures, my mother said, and let's get the ones out that we don't want. Nuff said, mama, watch me fly through this box, throwing pictures here and thereI never did like this one, etc, out, out, out! It was liberating and it liberated us all (my mother was not offended--she cheered me on, though she did warn me not to throw quite so heedlessly) from another meaningless (maybe meaningful once but suddenly not so much anymore) box of STUFF.
This, and my experience with my own house, has set me wondering about the pitfalls of capitalism--if we've got this much and we're a young family who has generally moved once every year or two, how much junk must everyone on my block have? In my town? In this country, for heaven's sakes? How many mountains could we fill with endless, endless, endless stuff??? And why do I feel as if I really need it, as if I need two or three sets of dishes and a room full of toys for my children, when they are perfectly content with a piece of paper and a box of crayons?
I remember my mother giving away our curtains from our windows to a guest who expressed admiration. You like em? Well, take em? I remember feeling personally wounded and rather panicked that she gave away her curtains with such alacrity. But why? It's just a thing, after all, my mother would say. Break the china in the fireplace! They're just things after all!
When we moved every year, there was a perfect opportunity for an intense clear-out. But when we're beginning your third year in the same place--oh, beware. Martin and I took out our kitchen table the other day after I counted up our tables and realized we had an embarrasing lot of tables and that we could use our porch table in our kitchen (brain wave comes every so often to this brocolli-head). As we're hauling out this antique table to the curb, we start second-guessing ourselves. Wow, it's really built nicely. Look at the notched work. It resided in my great-aunt's house for a lifetime, and it's still kicking. Why's it so heavy? Because it's well made, Martin hisses at me as we lug it down our porch stairs and on to the side of the road. I think this is a mistake, he says at one point. But then we really look at it and decide objectively, it is ugly. We don't like it; we aren't about to refinish its bizzare greenish stain; and chances are very good that now it's out of our house, we won't miss it in the least.
Why, why, why, am I holding on so tenaciously to mismatched socks?
I'm doing better, but it's a challenge, I tell you. Simple living? I don't even understand, really, how we've amassed so much. It comes in so fecklessly, so innocently, and then it puts down its little insidious roots in our lives. Warning! Invasive!
I will free myself! I will be free of this bizarre dependence on meaningless inanimate objects!
"I will not be overcome!" I declared to Martin the other day. "I have to free myself from the tyranny of STUFF!" Right on, Martin says, but it's hard to keep up the pace on your own. You have to help me, I finally told him. So he sat himself down and we began in the sunroom.
"What's that?" he'd say, and I would pull something off a shelf, some boxes or maybe that tarnished silver tray I thought was so much fun when I bought it. "What is that?" he'd say, and I'd mumble some excuse for its existence in our house. "Get rid of it," he'd continue, with barely a shrug. "Really? My silver tray?" Suddenly: what's the significance of this silver tray? Zero significance. Bing! Bing! Bing! On goes the light. "Okay," I'd agree happily as I took it to a gathering place on the dining room table.
Out it goes! The more I do this sort of thing, the easier it gets to do. In fact, it's intoxicating to let go of all this excess. There's a funny sort of barrier that I have to get through--it's the barrier of thinking I care about something, about feeling owned partially by that thing--and then declaring my freedom. My dominance over that stupid silver tray. Out it goes.
I had a bout of this sort of freedom in odd circumstances at my parent's house. They went off to church and I stayed home with the masses of pictures and artwork they owned, faced with a tiny condo and artwork from Africa (very graphic), Asia (intricate, whimsical), and endless what-nots from around the world. And this was after two sortings that had squeezed the juice out of their metaphorical suburban orange and into a little distilled town existence--zest--the essence of their life's possessions. It was a quandary, though, how to make what was left over all work together. I was trying but I was somewhat aware it was a losing battle, and sure enough my mother breezed in from church and pooh-poohed my efforts. Well, this made me (slightly sleep-deprived, no shower) RATHER grumpy, and so she laughed and suggested we all stop and have a glass of wine.
And this is where things went a little balmy, for me at least. The wine made my mother jolly and relaxed. The wine made me aggressive and impatient with personal kindness. Just go through the box of pictures, my mother said, and let's get the ones out that we don't want. Nuff said, mama, watch me fly through this box, throwing pictures here and thereI never did like this one, etc, out, out, out! It was liberating and it liberated us all (my mother was not offended--she cheered me on, though she did warn me not to throw quite so heedlessly) from another meaningless (maybe meaningful once but suddenly not so much anymore) box of STUFF.
This, and my experience with my own house, has set me wondering about the pitfalls of capitalism--if we've got this much and we're a young family who has generally moved once every year or two, how much junk must everyone on my block have? In my town? In this country, for heaven's sakes? How many mountains could we fill with endless, endless, endless stuff??? And why do I feel as if I really need it, as if I need two or three sets of dishes and a room full of toys for my children, when they are perfectly content with a piece of paper and a box of crayons?
I remember my mother giving away our curtains from our windows to a guest who expressed admiration. You like em? Well, take em? I remember feeling personally wounded and rather panicked that she gave away her curtains with such alacrity. But why? It's just a thing, after all, my mother would say. Break the china in the fireplace! They're just things after all!
When we moved every year, there was a perfect opportunity for an intense clear-out. But when we're beginning your third year in the same place--oh, beware. Martin and I took out our kitchen table the other day after I counted up our tables and realized we had an embarrasing lot of tables and that we could use our porch table in our kitchen (brain wave comes every so often to this brocolli-head). As we're hauling out this antique table to the curb, we start second-guessing ourselves. Wow, it's really built nicely. Look at the notched work. It resided in my great-aunt's house for a lifetime, and it's still kicking. Why's it so heavy? Because it's well made, Martin hisses at me as we lug it down our porch stairs and on to the side of the road. I think this is a mistake, he says at one point. But then we really look at it and decide objectively, it is ugly. We don't like it; we aren't about to refinish its bizzare greenish stain; and chances are very good that now it's out of our house, we won't miss it in the least.
Why, why, why, am I holding on so tenaciously to mismatched socks?
I'm doing better, but it's a challenge, I tell you. Simple living? I don't even understand, really, how we've amassed so much. It comes in so fecklessly, so innocently, and then it puts down its little insidious roots in our lives. Warning! Invasive!
I will free myself! I will be free of this bizarre dependence on meaningless inanimate objects!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Back from Seattle
Seattle.
It's GORGEOUS (just like my dear friend Kara who drove up from Missoula to join me there for a few days).
My parents live in a perfect little seaside town, Edmonds, three blocks from the Puget Sound and just around the corner from a fabulous Thai restaurant (among many other amazing eating establishments and endless coffee bars).
A five or ten minute stroll out Mom and Dad's front door takes you down to the coast, which is unlike other US coastal lines in that it is free from horrible, towering commercial establishments and instead sports walking paths, a swimming beach (complete with underwater paths that twist around a sunken ship), and beautiful sculptures thrown oh, anyhow, around the place. Here's a favorite:
On a Saturday morning, my parents can rub the sleep from their eyes, pop down to the corner pancake house, whip through the incredible farmer's market, snatching up some plump cherries and a huge bouquet of purple balloon flowers and brilliant orange poppies, and then, hungry for fish and chips, take the rather clean, rather sophisticated ferry
where you can watch dolphin fins rising out of the rolling water or try to make sense out of the unbelievable size of
Mount Rainier in the distance on one hand or the Cascades rising like imperial sisters on the other.
Or you can just enjoy the wind in your hair.
My main porpoise (ha!) in Seattle (besides drooling enviously all over the bugless, diseaseless flowers--unbelievable roses, lavender--on every corner) was to settle my parents' little condominium. It's not the first house I've decorated for them, and I was lucky enough to get this one--a challenging downsize from their large Baltimore suburban house. (Here's a before:)
My parents wanted something a little more sophisticated than their last house and so we opted for a blue/black/white scheme, appropriate to their proximity to the beach (without being "beachy--" ug).
We put together endless flatpacked furniture, installed endless curtain rods, opted for endless smart storage.
We even tucked my father's office into a (now doorless) closet.
And now they are ready to party.
I arrived back east to sweet, fresh-faced girls and a champion Daddy who had taken said girls camping in my absence. The garden exploded in my absence (in a industrious way), and I am happy to be home. Seattle leaves me with a want for more sophistication, a longing for Thai food, my parents, and the ability to walk everywhere, but with a sense that I am in the right place, too, among the warm green hills of Pennsylvania and my own community.
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