Simplify
Leidy spoke in an engaging way about how humans have a tendency to acquire, to think of addition in some form as the solution, and not to recognize the benefits of the opposite. His examples included the unsightly Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco and a Lego bridge that he and his toddler son collaborated on, among others. I was fascinated.
As soon as we got home, I put in a reservation at my local library and waited a bit impatiently for the ten days it took for the book to arrive. I dove in immediately and found Leidy to be almost as interesting on paper as he had been on the radio. He included most of his best material in the podcast (although I don't remember his mentioning Maya Lin on the radio) and I'd urge you to listen to him if you can. I don't know which of these podcasts is the one I heard, but the guy's the guy, etc.
During the time I waited for the book, I thought a lot about subtraction, recalling the zeal with which many of us purged our homes in the early weeks of the Covid Pandemic (my church's rummage sales were cancelled for about two years and eventually all of my cast-offs went to the nearby thrift shop because we'd simply run out of holding space). I went through the bulging in-boxes of my email accounts (yes, there are two but I don't know for how much longer) and clicked "Unsubscribe" again and again and again. After a colleague at the food pantry mentioned that the pandemic had actually been a blessing to her because she was able to reclaim her life from perceived outside obligations, I found ways to declutter my own calendar. The weekly notifications from some service or another telling me how much screen time I'd had during the previous week pointed to another area where something had taken over a chunk of my life without my even realizing it. I turned to Facebook, the great time-suck of our existence, and thought about whether I would leave. I wouldn't, though, because there are some people who live far away that this is really my only connection to. But I "unfollowed" and "snoozed" and "unfriended" and reduced many "friends" to "acquaintances" and now my FB visits are much briefer. And less distressing!
Hugely, I finally came to accept that a long-standing friendship had frayed to the point where it was no longer "bringing me joy" but had become a source of painful irritation. I knew what I needed to do and it seemed impossible but when I talked it over with my relative*, she helped me find the words I needed.
I considered the great reorganization of my sewing space where we invested in shelves and see-through storage boxes to make my fabric more accessible; that wasn't subtraction but rather addition, and the net result was simplification.
And that led me to thinking about "My Word." A handful of blogging quilters that I know come up with a single word each January that is their focus or guide for the year. I've admired them because (1) they are actually able to come up with one word and (2) they seem to have the stick-to-it-iveness to hang onto it for fifty-two weeks. The realization came to me that without knowing it, I've been simplifying in many ways, for many weeks. And have plans to do more of it.
Subtraction and simplifying are two different things, but they seem to me to be cousins to each other. And I'm planning to continue to get to know them better. Stay tuned.
*Niece, actually, but who wants to admit to being old enough to be an aunt to someone in her sixties?
Comments
Will see if the library here has a copy of this book because unless I'm in a car, I don't sit still long enough to listen to pod casts. If I'm home, I fall asleep!
Thanks, Nancy, your posts are always so interesting.
Hugs!
I need to put more of my energy into subtracting and simplifying. Seems that in the last couple of years, as we did the final clean-out of my in-laws' and my parents' homes, my basement has been bulging with stuff. And hubby has inherited his Mom's tendency to not get rid of anything. My Mom got rid of everything--and I land somewhere between the two.