Monday, August 23, 2021

Dreams, Daylight, and Rooms (Poem)

I used to have a golden dream

I retreated to for relief,

For belief

Once -- maybe twice --

I saw stars in a darkened sky

I used to believe in things like dreams, and stars,

And skies

Perhaps I've traded 

Promises of the night

For the fragile realities of daytime?

The green of leaves

The explosion of flowers

The sturdiness of living wood,

The harbingers of the living world

There is glory in these,

No doubt

And having been in greying rooms

That were just here, just now

Which required dreams to live through

I am grateful for fragility,

No doubt

But shouldn't a life

-- Real and full --

Have day and night,

Dreams, stars, and sunlight?

Perhaps -- perhaps

I need a different dream

Before I can open my eyes

In this other darkened room

Friday, August 20, 2021

A two-dimensional river (Poem)

On the dock by the river

A pattern of criss cross

As good as two dimensions

Are going to get

The current pushed aside

By another force

Is this not

What real life looks like?

Bordered by rocks and lily pads

Stagnant batches in the middle

Lost in the details

Of the side show --

Wishing for "smooth" 

-- Whatever that means --

Then wondering why it seems

To push by 

Too fast

On occasion, a wonder --

A funnel, a swirl, a vortex --

Captivating to contemplate,

A window into the third dimension

-- But ultimately,

Only one direction,

And that is down

A reminder to master the flow of the two

Before we try to plumb

The mysteries of the third

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Wishing at sea (Poem)

Sitting by the breezy sea

Unlike most wishes,

This one comes true

Is that, perhaps,

Why we love the sea?

We know what it can give us

And what it can do

And we know that,

In its own way,

It makes everything else

A little better

Is it the taste and smell of salt?

On the most humid of days

Does it feel a little less heavy

Because instead of moisture

We feel salt giving us a hug?

Is it the sounds?

Waves against rocks or stones

Birds protesting

The escape of food?

We know we are not alone

Or at least

We can believe it

Is it the sight of everything mundane

Suddenly become majestic?

The grey of water

Is now sunlit silver

The blue of sky

Reflecting back a little bit

Of its own glory

The whiteness of clouds

A little fuller

Now that they

Are closer to their home

Skyline meets sea-line on the horizon

Perhaps everything is coming home to itself

This wish,

Unlike most,

Comes true at sea

Monday, August 16, 2021

Awakening (Poem)

Awakening with time

In time

Trying on for size

The responsibilities of the day,

The days that make up

Lives

Holding onto sleep, the comfort

Of simply existing

Without the need to prove

Value or meaning

Enjoying contentment

There is nothing to wake up for

Enthusiasm for the day,

The future

Is replaced by satisfaction

With the present

But sunlight can be treachery

Just as are the memories and torments

Of the dark

And contentment

Is always fleeting

We do not rise for enthusiasm

We rise for hope

That we can construct our lives

Day by day

Not with what we must do

But what we have chosen to do

Contentment is fleeting

As is sunlight

As are memories, good and bad

Good and sad

And as is the day

But the things we do

The things we choose

The days -- 

The life -- 

We construct

Are the things that endure

Thursday, August 12, 2021

...but I'm not a minimalist

I've discussed my love of Marie Kondo's philosophy of tidying before, and I will do so again. Perhaps it is because I loved her books so much and read them so closely that I'm always dismayed when she's characterized as a minimalist. No, no, no. She specifically says that when you tidy, your focus should be on what you keep, not what you cast off. Kondo writes about people experiencing a "click", wherein they will feel that they now have the right amount of possessions, and that's when they should stop tidying. (She also does not say that everyone should limit themselves to the thirty books that she feels comfortable with, but the internet loves repeating its bs, so don't let facts stop you.)

Before Kondo arrived at her method, she was obsessed with throwing things away, and wasn't sure why she was still miserable even after discarding bags and bags of things. It was only when she had the insight to focus on what she was keeping that her method was truly born. I bring this up to explain not only why her work resonates with me, but also why I am not a minimalist.

If Kondo wanted to know why she was unhappy no matter how much she got rid of, others want to know why they were miserable no matter how much they had. For them, minimalism, or getting down to the brass tacks of what they needed to survive, was what they needed to break free of consumerism.

Believe me, I sympathize, and maybe other Gen-Xers do as well. Many of us were born when things were tight in the 1970s, and were alternately dazzled and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff in the 1980s. (And for those of us who could not afford all of the trappings, many of us felt and sometimes were bullied.) I appreciate the luxury of being able to say "No" to stuff you don't want and don't need. If I'm going to take on a label, then the one I want is Anti-Consumerist.

Perhaps it is because I am reflexively atheist, but there is just too much of a vow of poverty and the promise of salvation to the current cult of minimalism to appeal to me. It is the opposite side of the coin of consumerism: if one fetishizes things, the other venerates not having them. Neither appears at all to be helpful or healthy.

I am reminded of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode, "The Saint"/"A Person of Interest". You may know this as the one that starred Stephen Colbert as the villain, James Bennett (I am not making this up), but what I think about is his character's mother, Betty. The detectives figure out that she was suffering from a form of depression which made her vulnerable to wanting salvation, and the church she was a part of took advantage of that by encouraging her to donate beyond her means even when she had a child to raise. This is what so many minimalists look like to me when they focus on how little they have.

Focusing on having almost nothing as a way to salvation seems, to me, to be indulging in as much magical thinking as those who buy into marketing and advertising. The underlying premise of just about all of it is that you will be happier merely because you possess said thing, whether that's a piece of software, an item of clothing, or a hard-to-find ingredient. The promise of minimalism is that you will be happier merely by not having it. As I said, two sides of the same coin.

I find both minimalism and consumerism to be automatic and unexamined. Both are, in their own ways, belief systems. One says have as little as you can (and you're helping the environment), the other says have as much as you can (and you're helping the economy). I like belief systems -- they're very simplifying -- but neither reflect the messiness of reality. In every day life, we need to make choices that reflect the nuance of our options.

I need to eat, therefore I need food (the ultimate disposable consumption category). That's a primal need, so much so that most people don't argue that is a need...but you will get people who will tell you that you should eat so much, or only so much, of this ingredient or that ingredient. You should eat at home, of course, because cooking for yourself is cheaper and more customizable, but that's not always helpful advice for someone with a busy work schedule. (Well, why are you working so much in the first place?) You should be willing to make an investment purchase and get only the most pristine, organic, locally produced option available, but that's not always possible for someone who has a limited budget.

Then there's shelter, clothing, healthcare, and transportation. Those are essentials, and the decisions about them always come with trade offs; sometimes it makes sense to consume, and sometimes it makes sense to think about consuming as little as possible. But for the majority of people, no one philosophy makes sense all the time.

I am right now reading The Day The World Stops Shopping by J.B. Mackinnon and re-reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Daczyzn. The exploration of these topics and the proposed solutions feel like the middle of the road between minimalism and consumerism, because they require thought and reflection. Those things are exhausting, and sometimes we don't have that luxury. All I can say is that with practice, it become more of a habit of mind than a conscious exercise. Maybe?

But there's no easy answer.

Deb in the City