“If you never heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”
I’ve written about this topic before. We carry our wounds and issues, often in plain sight of everyone except ourselves.
This statement states it in a way that exceeds pithiness.
I made the image, too.
X
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My version of this famous quote is much more apt.
X
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Just my opinion, of course.
I reminded myself that I’m an imperfectionist. And I take pleasure from the idea of people frowning when they can’t read the text on the picture very well. Like a lot of things that are true, you have to look a little harder.
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This post isn’t for you. You know who are, favorite DNA person. 🙂
Most of us live in our private nests.
Pretty much everyone feels like they need to clean more, reduce more, and spend more time in the bureaucracy of keeping their nest aligned with an arbitrary level of cleanliness. That’s okay, too. Each minute spent to do so should not be at the expense of your moments, your friends, your family – but more so, at the cost of your mental well-being. Time spent concerned about how your nest looks is time not spent being creative or enjoying even simple pleasures. You become too focused on the “ought to and obligation” of keeping your nest perfect.
Stacks of mail in the kitchen, dust everywhere it can be. Clothes to be washed, clothes to be put away, clothes that don’t fit inside the closet, dressers, and on the floor. Books to be read, magazines you will never read. You don’t have a crazy drawer, you have an entire crazy room, garage, or storage space filled with miscellaneous everything. Most of us do. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there! People keep their nests largely unhidden, so we wrongly assume they don’t have the same problem as we do.
You can’t triage the physical space. Look around. For the most part, whatever condition your house is in right now, it’s probably the default. That might bother you to accept. It shouldn’t. You can fight an agonizing fight to spend a lot of time and energy temporarily fixing your space, or you can yield and do the best you can and let it go at that. Homes and nests are meant to be lived in, and you will always have to make choices to keep it pristine or lived in. You can’t have both without wasting a lot of your now moments.
The same is true about your job, your diet, your vices, and your mind.
Each person’s best is variable, fluid, and often contradictory. And that is okay.
If you have precious things, keep those that are tied to defining moments and memories in your life. The rest? Sell what you can to have the things that add value to your life.
Donate, discard, disown.
We hoard and clutter partly because it makes us feel like our place is a home, a nest, and our place to be. But we also do it because we don’t see the arc of time getting shorter and shorter.
For a later day, I might need it, it’s valuable; these are all valid reasons to keep things. But it is not things that matter. Not if you don’t use them regularly, not if they don’t light you up, or if they fail to make your life fuller and more satisfying.
“Treasures that aren’t treasured, admired, or used aren’t treasures at all. They are anchors, ones that keep up from enjoying the here and now and the people in our orbit.” – X
Out of sound, out of mind, trinkets, and treasures stored for no witness or participant.
Things are to be used or admired. Everything else? It not only clutters your nest, it clutters your mind.
Simplicity is the toughest goal. It requires herculean effort to overcome the urge to keep, to store, to accumulate.
As someone smart once told me, “Ain’t nothing you got that can’t be taken except for your peace of mind. This world honors nothing with permanence.”
Love, X
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“I’ve put my foot in my mouth so many times, I’ve begun to like the taste of toes.” – x
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“A hungry stomach cannot hear.” -Jean de La Fontaine
“Breaking bread together” is an old phrase, but its simplicity is the message.
If you are hungry, any food will suffice. “Hunger is the best sauce,” someone smarter than me quipped. Hungry people don’t moan about what and where to eat; if they do, it’s kept short and grouchily pronounced.
If you’re happy, bread with wine or dipped in oil is enough to fill you. And if you’re not, no amount of food will create a smile.
If you are lonely, companionship will overfill your plate. People are the food of our souls.
I love great food. Who doesn’t?
But I love simple food, made without stress and shared.
And if I meet with someone or a group to eat, the presence of others is supposed to be the essential element.
X’s Rule On Group Dining: You will dislike eating with at least one person in any group of more than four people.
I’m not opposed to opulent multi-course meals.
Who would be?
But if they require effort not joyfully given, they take away someone’s time and life to prepare.
It’s one of the principal problems with holiday meals or get-togethers.
Traditions inevitably beget obligation.
Often, what was once freely done becomes taxing and vexation.
Complexity and expectations detract from someone’s enjoyment.
It should always be about the presence of faces on one’s couch or around the table, no matter how luxurious it might be. Everyone’s house is lived in, messy, and full of life’s surprises that no one has the time or interest in rectifying. Unless you are eating off the mantle, leave the dust for later.
Break bread.
Eat.
And be merry inasmuch as your circumstances permit.
Because, well, you know.
Tomorrow ye may die.
Whether you’ve eaten like a gourmand or like a ravenous teenager with his hand in the bottom of a bag, it will not be what you remember as the wrinkles accumulate across your face.
Humble food is the joy. And if someone wishes to make a feast joyfully, even better.
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Almost all happy people I know decide where and what to eat easily, graciously, and without complaint. And if they find themselves in the home of another with friends, family, or loved ones, they make do. Unless they are visiting cannibals, vegans, or Presbyterians.” – X
“It is the faces, not the places, that matter.” – X
Love, X
PS “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” -Mark Twain
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Early this morning, not that 5:30 a.m. is not early… The wind was really howling. It felt amazing if you were out there for just a minute. After a minute, I would compare it to standing in a oven being heated. The ancient Greeks were alive again they would certainly add air conditioning to their list of deities.
‘It’s better to stand corrected than to sit wrong.’ – X
‘And especially so if all the chairs are made of nails and traffic cones.’
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)
What will you be listening for on this hot sweltering day?
X
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“Boom cheese day parity.”
Even though I had my keyboard and talk to text set to Spanish, it insisted that’s what I said in Spanish and now I can’t get the phrase out of my head.
Also, if you spot the felonious miscreant who absconded with my hair, please contact the Fayetteville Police department.
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Cliché Reimagined
Potentially NSFW
Educational Portion Of Post: the unseen portion of an iceberg is called a bummock, while the visible portion is called a hummock. This is true, as preposterous as the words are.
“The tip of the iceberg” denotes that much is unseen, unmeasured, and unobservable.
I came up with a tangent phrase, one which denotes the same arc, except that it refers to some people: the tip of the dickberg. (“Dickberg” is now in my dictionary. 🙂 )
Whether it’s true or not, I think it’s clever.
“Geez, Steve is really a jerk,” Susan said.
“What he just did is the tip of the dickberg,” Susan.
On a meta-level, I would use it to express the fact that if there’s a little smoke, there’s probably a basement filled with fire.
And not the smores kind.
Stay tuned for more insights and lunacy.
Love, X
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 