No Man Is an Island

Pragmatics

• -John Donne said it first and best. I just learned that “ask not for whom the bell tolls” was in the same meditation as “no man is an island”. He packed those insights in, in one paragraph in this case!


• -Here are one woman’s thoughts on reinhabiting her own community as part of her efforts toward simplicity.

-Thomas Merton, a new favorite of mine, had a lot to say on this topic (he wrote a whole book with the same title as this blog). A man who experienced (and perhaps preferred) much solitude, he did not fail to recognize how vital community was: “Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and ‘one body,’ will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives.” Here are some other quotes of his.

Prose

I write fairly regularly about alone time and down time, both being necessities I have discovered along the way. Both contribute, for me, to a meaningful and balanced lifestyle.

But this week, it’s the flip side I’ve been thinking about: community. One essay I read recently (wish I could remember where) wrote about a different kind of lifestyle than most of us have now. Before TV, before even radio, neighbors were known to visit. They would pass time and share stories. Especially in less populated areas, like the frontier, fellowship was vital for both sanity and survival. I do think there’s something to the in person community, versus all of these online forums we have today. But both come from a good impulse.

Two weeks ago, I experienced community at Burgundy Books in East Haddam. Linda and Chuck were warm and gracious hosts, every writer’s dream. Just a small handful of friends turned out for my Get Satisfied reading, but it filled my heart to feel their encouragement and interest.

My two readings in these last 2 months have called for courage. It was not the courage to stand up and read what I wrote. I needed courage to reach out, to let people know that I wrote something, to ask them to come to my event. I’m also gathering the courage to connect with other writers, exchanging information on agents and workshops. This includes contacting writers much more advanced than I—to get to their wisdom and their encouragement, I am willing to risk rejection.

In keeping with my simplicity focus, I’ve also found likeminded people online, via Freecycle. I’ve decided the types of people who frequent Freecycle want the value of their possessions to be meaningfully maximized, something I can relate to in my efforts to discard with discretion. Rather than dump hauls they are thinking about who might use what they can no longer fit into their home or lifestyle. They are taking reduce, reuse, recycle to a new level of productive community exchange.

Then there’s a more serious kind of community: my first NarAnon meeting last Tuesday, a much needed tool for dealing with an addict family member. To be greeted with warmth and understanding about such a painful dilemma was a long overdue step for me.

It seems all 12-step groups have a lot of catch phrases. These phrases provide important, easy-to-recall reminders of truths that should not be ignored. At NarAnon, I heard, “Keeping coming back. It works if you work it.” The same can be said of community. It’s a well that should be dipped into more often, a tool that can be applied to solve so many problems.

I like this quote by Black Elk, a Sioux holy man. It speaks to our connectedness, to the need for each other that cannot be overlooked:

Hear me, four quarters of the world - a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.

Resolution Solution

CT readers: Sunday, January 13 at 4PM is the new “snow date” for my reading at Burgundy Books in East Haddam. Here is a link to Author’s Track, a site on local readings and signings. (See lower right for the Get Satisfied reading. The site also links to Burgundy Books.)

Pragmatics

In the interest of simplicity, I propose boycotting yet another “to do” list, this time in the form of 2008’s resolutions. I have chosen instead one philosophical perspective to aspire to, embodied by a quotation (see Prose below).

I hope these quotation sites spark some genuine inspiration and motivation that extend far into 2008.

-Of course, some quotes on simplicity, from ThinkExist.com.
-It all boils down to just living thoughtfully day to day. About.com has several great quotes on the business of living well.
-Make this year a more creative endeavor! Follow your dreams.com includes a collection of creativity quotes.
-Just for fun, here are some quotes on the New Year itself from the Quote Garden.

Prose

This has been a hard season for me, the kind where I feel I’m doing everything right and everything still goes wrong. I wrote in early autumn about complicated families, and this last entry of 2007 could very well be part 2 of a long-running series on the topic.

But I know that it is time to regroup, a concept the New Year’s holiday uniquely champions. Stopping to think back on the last month, even with the formula of usual holiday stresses + family problems = near insanity, I am grateful to recall several windows in time that offered comfort and joy, just like the Christmas carol says.

Both Christmas Eve and Day were graced by family walks, a budding tradition I relish much more than gifts and meals. The Eve found us strolling around unseasonably warm Essex, CT. Gavin played on the mini-beach that joins Main Street with the Connecticut River. We fed the gulls, ducks, and geese. Tom popped into a store for some very last minute stocking stuffers. We were refreshed by the cool air and the smell of the river water. Christmas Day dinner was capped by a walk in Chester. All of the stores were closed, of course, and the silence on the street, only our footsteps to interrupt it, was a treasure.

My sister also struggles with these family calamities, and sent me the gift of appreciative words in the middle of a chaotic week. She shared the visual clarity of a berried shrub peeking out of the Vermont snow, a big silver bucket of cranberries at the ready for the holidays. These words of appreciation reminded me that there is always beauty to be found.

I want a quotation to center around, words that summarize what I want and need for my New Year. There are so many sophisticated words to choose from, wise insights from great academics and scholars, sweeping poetry verses that quicken my pulse. But I keep returning to a fluorescent green index card that seems to repeatedly resurface around my house. One Sunday at church, the 4th through 6th grade class greeted each attendee at the door with a neatly handwritten card. Their project had been to choose and distribute quotations to the congregants. I was given one from Aesop’s Fables:

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

There’s simplicity for you. It is difficult to embody gratitude when times are stressful, and yet I know that this message is key for me this year. It looks backward at my childhood love of the character Pollyanna; it looks forward to the sort of writing I want to do and the kind of days I want to spend. And for today, it centers me on all that I have, versus what is lacking.

Wishing you the happiest of New Years.

The Art of Saying No

Pragmatics

Saying no is a hard-won skill. Here are some links to learning the art:

• -Online organizing.com supplies 20 ways to say no—a great cheat sheet!
• -Real Simple did a spot on saying no to requests for money. It may come in handy this holiday season!
• -About.com’s stress management column offers some practical tips for naysayers. I like the time-tested “let me get back to you” option.
• -Even the Mayo Clinic deems saying no a worthy cause.
  

Prose

Pursuing simplicity is an act of embracing. Embracing what and who you love, embracing your beliefs and ideals. At the same time, it is a turning away—from demands and expectations that threaten to overshadow the good stuff; from possessions and practices that clutter your home, your mind, the environment.

Embracing comes naturally to most of us. After all, we are embracing those things we already love. But saying no takes practice and skill. Today I insisted I really needed some time to write and relax. This meant no to a family ice cream outing (definitely a tough call), and it also meant disappointing my husband. But now I am happier: I got to slow down a bit and write; I got to play Cat Stevens (major childhood memories) in the kitchen and make crab cakes with Gavin. I feel refreshed and much less cranky—and hopefully more fun to be around.

Christmas is not far off and we are starting the season, as we do every year, vowing to have a simpler approach. Tom and I don’t really need gifts, and have agreed that just having a long-postponed date would be more rewarding. But already I feel the vortex pulling me in: maybe just stocking stuffers, maybe just something small. It is hard to stop that snowball effect of buying more, incurring unneeded debt. I want a clever scheme that will save me from The Ghost of Christmas Must Have. Still working on that one.

Then there is that backlog of stuff you didn’t really need in the first place, or maybe you outgrew it. Gavin, only 5, is already experiencing some of that hanging onto stuff, and it seems tied in with sentimentality. In anticipation of Christmas we started to clean out his (several) toy storage bins, starting with a big hallway trunk. The emphasis on charity didn’t work as well as I hoped. What worked better was my allusion to Santa’s assessment of toys already owned, and how he might bring fewer toys to boys that seem overloaded. That resulted in a small garbage bag filled with forgotten toddler toys, although the barking dalmatian toy that he no longer walks had to stay.

As a mother, I struggle with sentimental clutter every day. The volume of artwork that comes home from kindergarten and daycare is staggering. I might trial a weekly “art sale” where we pick the top 5 “keepers”. Gavin’s baby clothes are packed in giant Rubbermaid bins in the attic. I can’t bear the thought of losing them; they all carry such memories. And yet, maybe some little boy out there could really use at least some of them. Do I really need 50 onesies and T-shirts to hold my memories of babyhood?

A local author and artist, Jill Butler, wrote some columns in our shoreline paper. I liked the term she came up with: rightsizing. She wrote about how downsizing sounds so deprived, while rightsizing sounds so, well, right. This is a great way to put it. I don’t want fanaticism. I don’t want deprivation. I want sanity—a clear head and clear surroundings.

What is it about saying no that’s hard? In my case, I don’t want to be difficult. I don’t want to be a “stick in the mud”. I want to be fun and easygoing, not the “bad guy”. And yet, a few carefully placed “nos” have yielded some great results. I said no to being a manager and regained some workplace sanity. Before that, I said no to a career at a large, prestigious company and got a short commute and a much better rapport in exchange. I say no to the ringing phone when I am absorbed in something else and get far more done. I say no even to mothering when I feel the need for escape, and come back much more patient, ready for any challenge.

I like this quote by Linda Breen Pierce: If you say yes to one thing (like a job promotion), recognize that you are saying no to something else (perhaps more time with family). Live consciously and deliberately.

The Best of Times and The Worst of Times (aka Today’s Supermarket Trip)

• -My supermarket trip has me philosophizing today, and I am not alone in my Sunday reflections. This blog provokes a lot of thought, including the ending statement that, in our society, the power to buy…is the power to be.
  

The very politically incorrect movie Borat has a funny extra scene where an American man guides Borat through the dairy section of the supermarket. What is this?, asks Borat repeatedly as they walk the length of the aisle. His guide answers, with uncanny patience, Cheese, to every question. This happens at least 20 times. I hear non-Americans are stunned when they first see an American mega-supermarket. Sixteen kinds of cream cheese? 101 instant rice or pasta dishes? A whole aisle just for pet food?

Is this hell or nirvana?

It can be hell with a 5-year-old, with the constant task of negotiating what treats should be allowed, which are too unhealthy, and how to make the remaining 6 aisles fly by before Gavin, my mom, and I descend into a frothing megastore lunacy. Even without a child present, the experience is a barrage of brands, hype, and stressed-out shoppers. My feet ache and at the end I am throwing anything within easy grasp into my cart.

At the same time, I realize the privilege that we have in buying what we like—not just what nourishes us but what strikes our fancy. We opt for something new, seek out a brand that is particularly pleasing, compare calories and fat grams and come out with some sense of accomplishment and anticipation. We deposit a few boxes of Rice-a-Roni in the community food pantry box—hardly enough to balance out our big-eyed indulgences, but a nod in the right direction and a good lesson for Gavin.

Becoming vegetarian has complicated my shopping in some ways. I am a pesca vegetarian (still eating fish), and often wonder how full-throttle vegetarians (completely meatless) or vegans (no dairy or meat) do it. I have to think twice before I fall back on the old habits of chicken—a lot of seemingly meatless items like rice and vegetable soup contain chicken flavoring.

I don’t feel deprived. Our market has an entire health food section with loads of meatless choices. Even the so-called deprivation of meat is a privilege, because it is a choice. I think of the many in the world who must eat what they can manage to beg, borrow, or steal. I think of the many who don’t have the extra resources—the time, the education, the choice-centric lifestyle–to ponder ethics and make informed, globally-oriented decisions.

Our local store is, well, local. I have avoided going there for 2 reasons: the diminished choices (perhaps only 5 varieties of cream cheese!) and the limit on free time that seems to force one-stop shopping: somewhere that has a home goods aisle, a drugstore aisle, a greeting card aisle, etc. Maybe I will experiment with a shorter trip, wean myself down to fewer choices and less hassle. Maybe the time and energy I gain will let me make those extra trips for nonfood things, and still leave time and energy to spare. It is worth a shot.

This simplicity thing is a work in progress, and sometimes my idols are the people who make more sweeping choices. Yes, yes, the people who move to remote cabins to think, or even better to remote, war-torn countries to make a tangible difference. But sometimes my envy is of the more mundane simplistics—the single guy I read about in Choosing Simplicity who approached nutrition in the most pragmatic and economical ways. He ate primarily ramen noodles, varieties of protein mixed in for nutritional benefit. He saved money, he saved time, he saved the energy that I expend every 2 weeks on food choices. Or what about the woman who purchased a modest cottage, making the tiny square footage work by sleeping in a loft, paring down to only the most essential items? Having a family, at least a democratic family, definitely prevents some of the more radical choices, as different needs and preferences must be weighed.

And so, I continue to look for little ways to simplify. It’s funny to me that grocery delivery, a given when my mother’s mother was young, has come back. I’ve used the service (called Peapod here in Connecticut) and there are some inherent advantages: undistracted price comparisons (even a sort-by-price button!), the lack of random temptation, the ability to review your list and subtract as needed (it’s all just a thought process until you press the ‘confirm’ button). Still the same problem that you have with a smaller store, though: not everything you need pops up on your computer screen. No doubt the time is coming when it will.

I think a lot about how, with planning, a lot of things could be done differently. But today’s fast pace allows only a limited time for planning, and this forces choices that are less than ideal. Still, I relish the choices that might benefit my own use of time, the way our family spends its days, and maybe even in some cases the world at large. The food crowding our cabinets tonight is also food for thought. Maybe the trip was worth the aching feet.

Bringing Simplicity Home

Pragmatics

• 
  
  This week, I found myself stunned to find décor magazines recommending at least 2 sinks per kitchen. Apparently appliance garages are essential (can I get a remote door opener with that?), and one article that implied a “simple” cottage lifestyle gushed, The more “stuff” you have in your cottage style rooms, the more it will feel like you have been collecting for years. Below, some thoughts that buck the madness too much stuff, too much to do, and the exhaustion that can result:
  
  -Care2’s got it right in this Simplicity Overhaul piece on making time for what really matters. I like the idea of listing priorities (for me, family time, writing time, and nature) and then identifying some of the day-to-day obstacles.
  -I didn’t realize it was all Walt Disney’s fault. If you have 5 minutes read National Geographic’s The Theme-Parking, Megachurching, Franchising, Exurbing, McMansioning of America. This is a reflection on the collective mess that can occur with skewed priorities and poor planning.
  -“Less is more” seems to be making its way even into high-tech machines and systems. But it seems America is conflicted on this point. I love this quote from the Fast Company article The Beauty of Simplicity: The market for simplicity is complex. If I offer you a VCR with only one button, it's not all that exciting, even if when you use it, it's likely to be easier.
  
  
  
  

Prose

I wrote above about the exhaustion that comes with too much. The links I provided are focused mostly on too much stuff, or the pollution of clutter (be it household, community, or even visual aesthetics). But it goes beyond the physical realm, of course.

The clutter for me, of late, has been the clutter of responsibility. When so much is expected of you, how do you clear the decks, how do you make way for a life that feels more livable? This is what I have been struggling with over recent weeks, so much so that I wrote nothing last week.

Maybe the first lesson is to surround yourself with the right kind of support. I wither when I don’t write, so I finally got back to the computer today. But I might have delayed it even further had Linda (my godsend of a sister) not encouraged me to write, if only for 10 minutes.

I took a small step at work and begged off of a business trip so that my workload stays manageable. There’s still a long list of projects waiting for me, but now I’ve gained an extra day to address them. I need to do more of that.

The responsibility of relationships can be a struggle. I have learned to keep an eye on my family role, often self appointed, of helper and coordinator. I am learning, quite painfully sometimes, when to pull back, when to let others make mistakes, how to focus on my own needs.

Lowering unrealistic standards really helps, and I brought that into play this weekend. I tend not to invite people over unless I’ve just cleaned. These days, this habit translates to not much company! I realized that my friend Pam will remain a friend even if I have dirty dishes in the sink and an unvacuumed floor. This letting go meant that Gavin had precious play hours with Sara, the 6-year-old love of his life, and Pam and I got to have a long-postponed, honest-to-goodness conversation.

Here’s to a new week with clear decks and new possibilities.