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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There are a lot of bad men out in the world, whether they physically dominate or mentally degrade their wives and children. The smart ones are fiendishly clever in concealment; their masks in public are often adorned with a suit and tie, a quick smile, or an engaging personality. Growing up, I had to endure abuse. A lot of people knew it was happening. Few ever attempted to intervene. I understand the complicated issues at play for their failure. That kind of abuse, however, leaves most people with a shaky faith in their parents, their god, and of their ability to leave such trauma behind.
With that in mind, even though I am a liberal, I have always been drawn to the concept of southern justice. When someone does the right thing, even when the right thing is also terrible. It’s not revenge. It’s taking the light back from someone who isn’t worthy of its possession.
I’m not advocating violence.
I’m advocating action.
Sometimes action yields a terrible consequence yet remains the lesser evil.
Someone I know whose life suffered due to the presence of a human monster sent me this song.
It resonated exactly as expected.
Love, X
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Preface: I wrote what follows this morning…almost as a coda, on the way to the apartment after work, a black Camaro zoomed impatiently into its left lane approaching me from the opposite direction. The driver was going too fast and over-corrected, sending him into my lane and luckily swerving wildly into the far lane next to me. I had no time to react, not even to stomp my brakes, which would have certainly resulted in a multiple-car pileup. As I passed without time to feel my heart accelerate, squeals, honks, and braking behind me filled the air. The driver of the Camaro managed to gain control without being hit. He stopped in the right lane facing oncoming traffic. The capricious and erratic symmetry of just living reared its head and whispered to me.
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All of these are true
none inscribed to change your hue
An undiagnosed cough ended on the kitchen floor
her love and life abruptly no more
Expert pilot fell to the ground
his loving sister to conjure the sound
A cluster of cells aligned with malignant intent
those around her yearning more time had been spent
The unbearable yet unbeatable beckon of alcohol
those who loved him clutching and watching his fall
A 92-year-old beloved woman took her last breath
a life well lived, met with welcomed death
An aneurysm unseen and unfelt and then all rendered past tense
no warning no reason no sense
Careless driver through the sign leaving one with an unfaithful spine
her arc of life flattened to a baseline
You worry about how you sound or look
how you sing, how you dance, how you might be mistook
any given moment, the universe can close your book
You have this moment to scribble your notes
to construct and imagine needless moats
Kind heart, clear eyes, and curious mind
make sure that you leave something meaningful behind
We are all preterit
This can both energize and immobilize, this insight into truth
beauty and love are in the eye of the beholder
May you live your life just a little bit bolder
no guarantee of life or that you’ll become older
Seize the day, come what may
otherwise, it will seize you
even if you do everything to perfection
these words are no mere early morning reflection
affection, expression, introspection
of these words, there is no question
X
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When I’m doing these goofy videos, it slips my mind I still have my cape on. This was the case a few minutes ago when I went out on the landing to do chores and favors. One of the neighbors was sitting in her SUV and looked up and laughed fairly raucously. When I came back up the stairs to the landing, another neighbor popped out his door and casually looked at me. Then his head whipped around again to take another look. I had no choice except to swirl my cape dramatically, because that’s what people do in those unusual circumstances. I wish I would have thought to jump over the side of the railing and then duck out of sight. This neighborhood could definitely use a superhero. Or even an average guy with a broom and sweeper. Dream big y’all!
PS I keep hoping during one of my many convenience store excursions that I have my cape with me. And that I catch someone in the commission of a crime. I think someone in a cape would startle a would-be criminal so badly that they would freeze. Also the news headline would be very amusing. I would totally pretend that I actually have super powers.
Love, X
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And so it begins… My first day where my true identity has been revealed.
A very subtle sign rock that I made for one of my neighbors. They have a very sweet pitbull who loves cats. Not the r&b singer; rather, the canine version. My car Güino thinks every animal is his friend, but this dog makes his fur stand on end.
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Drug Shed Adventure
Oh, it is a serene enough scene now. An hour ago? Had you casually turned the corner, you would have witnessed a 55-year-old man kick off his sandals, peel off his shirt, followed by his pants, leaving him with a pair of underwear covering his body and nothing else.
Except for several hundred allegedly harmless ants.
I’ve been periodically deconstructing the drug shed behind my apartment. To avoid overpiling the dumpster, I split up my 40 or 50 trips back and forth hauling the contents of said shed to the dumpster. I should have done it last year, along with the cleanup and all the tree cutting. In winter, I mean, to reduce the varmint probability.
This afternoon, on a foolish whim, I went back there with a screwdriver and a small cutting tool. Yes, I had on a pair of rubber sandals. I realize that they are not on a construction workers list of advisable shoe wear in those conditions. All I can say in my defense is that I had a couple of major head dramas when I was younger.
Spiders? Check. Snakes? Check. It wasn’t until I was crammed up between the side of the drug shed facing the old wooden fence that I realized I was itching. I’d seen a few ants pour out one of the seams of the metal siding. A few were on my hand. Much to my surprise, I looked down at the mass of trash and leaves and realized I was standing on top of thousands and thousands of ants. Undoubtedly there was a colony underneath the steel and rotted wood platform, one which extended out into the untouched confines between the shed and the fence.
It took me a few seconds, I will admit – to connect my itching to the probability that I might be covered with ants underneath my clothing.
When I peeled off my shirt, I was covered in them. Which led me to the conclusion that my legs and nether regions were probably being invaded too. Because these weren’t flying ants, they had to have used my legs as a ladder to get up there right?
I jumped several feet away from the shed and began undressing like a music fan at a Phish festival. I used my hands for several seconds and then grabbed my shirt and began hitting myself.
Had anyone looked out the windows facing the back side of the apartments, they would either be shocked or just assumed that it’s another typical day where I live.
Tomorrow I will get my vengeance.
I’ll go out there with my professional strength insecticide and drown them. Please don’t feel sorry for the ants.
They got the last word today.
I guess it could have been worse: 10,000 spiders, a pit of snakes, or two dozen managers trying to have a meeting with me.
X
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Without further commentary…
We all have nicknames for our neighbors, ones we often substitute even when we know their names. After work I came out on the balcony to let the cat roam.
The sourpuss lady on the end exited her apartment. I waved and said, “Hello Karen,” before catching myself.
Oops!
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P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 