Simplicato
"I'm committed to eliminating the poppy crop."
- President Bush's response to inqueries about his stance towards Afghanistan's growing number of heroin-producing poppy farms
Oh CNN. You make me laugh aloud.
Sometimes you have to stop and enjoy the simple pleasures in life: an early morning shower with someone you care for, walking with no direction on a warm afternoon, a bite of a soft oatmeal cookie, the President of America saying the words "poppy crop" with dead seriousness. At times like these one wonders what everyone else in the world is so upset about, wonders why we're all wasting our time being angry or frustrated or sad about life when we can take in these small things and smile. Why is it so easy to get caught up in the day to day crap that surrounds us and so hard to take a big picture moment and realize everything that is going right in the large scale? It seems the small things that fill our days become little mini anchors that weigh us down rather than being occasions for rejoicing at being alive. Our routines and chores act as little nettles grabbing onto our clothing and while no one task causes fatigue or despondance alone, when added slowly, day by day, they find strength in their numbers. Until you reach the proverbial straw and find yourself suddenly despairing at the weight of it all. Some days I look at the drama going on in my life and the lives of my friends and I have to beg the question: When did our lives become so very full of poppy cock?
People often wax poetic about childhood, the ease, the uncomplicatedness of it all. When a crayon was just a crayon and nap time was an afternoon requirement. "Whatever happened to that kind of black and white simplicity?!" they cry. The thing is though, I don't know if it ever existed. Childhood, for me at least, was a scary and turbulent place. Emotions ran on high and the tiniest stimuli produced catastrophic emotial reactions. Though we prefer to remind ourselves of the times as a child when happiness was as close to complete as it can be, we must remember that the trade off was the occasional ebb of despair as low as the depths of the soul allowed. And though these emotions may have been inspired by as something as small as a lunch of Chicken A La King the feelings were no less true than those we have as adults. I think that it's easy to edit and re-edit memory in the light of one's most recent tragic or not so tragic events. But re-evaluating our previous conundrums based on all the contemporary information we have now ain't playing fair. It's easy to go back and say to oneself that not getting that part in the high school play was a simple and silly thing to get upset about, but the point is that at the time, it wasn't. I'm pretty sure that the emotions we feel now are generally the same ones we felt in those rose colored distant times, even if the things that inspire them have changed. I don't think the simplicity has disappeared. I'm not sure it ever existed.
Rather, I think our lives are as simple or as complicated as we choose to let them be. And by simplicity I don't mean that we can ever go back to a time where we don't work for a living or have to pay bills, those are the trade offs for mental maturity, but that we can go back to a time where our daily tasks haven't become entrenched in routine. Maybe it's possible to find a way back to enjoying the discovery of what we do every day.
This past weekend I worked two 11 hour days during the Italian Market Festival. Thousands of people wander through a two block radius in search of all things mafioso. I had been dreading all week the impending hours I would have to spend smiling and pretending to care about people's interest in Aged Asiago. But Saturday morning while we were setting up one of my co-workers threw a bundle of kale and knocked a huge bottle of olive oil off a shelf. It fell from 8 feet and covered the floor in off-yellow greasiness. And I can't really say why, but that made me smile. In its own small way it was defiant, that oil all over the floor. We slipped and slided the rest of the day but I didn't mind at all. When a pigeon flew into the store and the customers shrieked and hid from it, the smile grew a little wider. And when a balloon from a stand flew up into the light pole and shorted out the electricity for the entire neighborhood, I laughed and got out a notebook to write people's orders down by hand.
All of which is to say, none of the details in my life have gotten any less complicated. But I'm attempting to create a little simplicity where before there was none. Because I'm trying, in my own small way, to work against the instinct to pin myself with another tiny anchor, trying not to slash and singe, eliminating all the red and black from my life. Unlike Dubbya I don't want to burn them down, those big fat flowers with their opiate smell, and cut out the possibility of discovery in life.
I'd rather find a way to run wild in my fields, my glorious fields of poppy crop.
- President Bush's response to inqueries about his stance towards Afghanistan's growing number of heroin-producing poppy farms
Oh CNN. You make me laugh aloud.
Sometimes you have to stop and enjoy the simple pleasures in life: an early morning shower with someone you care for, walking with no direction on a warm afternoon, a bite of a soft oatmeal cookie, the President of America saying the words "poppy crop" with dead seriousness. At times like these one wonders what everyone else in the world is so upset about, wonders why we're all wasting our time being angry or frustrated or sad about life when we can take in these small things and smile. Why is it so easy to get caught up in the day to day crap that surrounds us and so hard to take a big picture moment and realize everything that is going right in the large scale? It seems the small things that fill our days become little mini anchors that weigh us down rather than being occasions for rejoicing at being alive. Our routines and chores act as little nettles grabbing onto our clothing and while no one task causes fatigue or despondance alone, when added slowly, day by day, they find strength in their numbers. Until you reach the proverbial straw and find yourself suddenly despairing at the weight of it all. Some days I look at the drama going on in my life and the lives of my friends and I have to beg the question: When did our lives become so very full of poppy cock?
People often wax poetic about childhood, the ease, the uncomplicatedness of it all. When a crayon was just a crayon and nap time was an afternoon requirement. "Whatever happened to that kind of black and white simplicity?!" they cry. The thing is though, I don't know if it ever existed. Childhood, for me at least, was a scary and turbulent place. Emotions ran on high and the tiniest stimuli produced catastrophic emotial reactions. Though we prefer to remind ourselves of the times as a child when happiness was as close to complete as it can be, we must remember that the trade off was the occasional ebb of despair as low as the depths of the soul allowed. And though these emotions may have been inspired by as something as small as a lunch of Chicken A La King the feelings were no less true than those we have as adults. I think that it's easy to edit and re-edit memory in the light of one's most recent tragic or not so tragic events. But re-evaluating our previous conundrums based on all the contemporary information we have now ain't playing fair. It's easy to go back and say to oneself that not getting that part in the high school play was a simple and silly thing to get upset about, but the point is that at the time, it wasn't. I'm pretty sure that the emotions we feel now are generally the same ones we felt in those rose colored distant times, even if the things that inspire them have changed. I don't think the simplicity has disappeared. I'm not sure it ever existed.
Rather, I think our lives are as simple or as complicated as we choose to let them be. And by simplicity I don't mean that we can ever go back to a time where we don't work for a living or have to pay bills, those are the trade offs for mental maturity, but that we can go back to a time where our daily tasks haven't become entrenched in routine. Maybe it's possible to find a way back to enjoying the discovery of what we do every day.
This past weekend I worked two 11 hour days during the Italian Market Festival. Thousands of people wander through a two block radius in search of all things mafioso. I had been dreading all week the impending hours I would have to spend smiling and pretending to care about people's interest in Aged Asiago. But Saturday morning while we were setting up one of my co-workers threw a bundle of kale and knocked a huge bottle of olive oil off a shelf. It fell from 8 feet and covered the floor in off-yellow greasiness. And I can't really say why, but that made me smile. In its own small way it was defiant, that oil all over the floor. We slipped and slided the rest of the day but I didn't mind at all. When a pigeon flew into the store and the customers shrieked and hid from it, the smile grew a little wider. And when a balloon from a stand flew up into the light pole and shorted out the electricity for the entire neighborhood, I laughed and got out a notebook to write people's orders down by hand.
All of which is to say, none of the details in my life have gotten any less complicated. But I'm attempting to create a little simplicity where before there was none. Because I'm trying, in my own small way, to work against the instinct to pin myself with another tiny anchor, trying not to slash and singe, eliminating all the red and black from my life. Unlike Dubbya I don't want to burn them down, those big fat flowers with their opiate smell, and cut out the possibility of discovery in life.
I'd rather find a way to run wild in my fields, my glorious fields of poppy crop.
posted by A at 6:02 PM
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