Wear solids

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

After the Parent/Teacher Organization meeting at my older daughter’s middle school a few weeks ago, I was instructed by my family to stop at Ingle’s Market for the following essentials: 1) dog food, 2) apple juice, 3) baby wipes, 4) Shonen Jump magazine, and 5) Edy’s Special Edition Peppermint ice cream. We’re living on the edge here in Asheville, living large, partying hearty. Long gone are the days of “pick up a six-pack, some chips, and a frozen pizza.” So, I made my way down (or up, perspective matters) to Ingle’s where I found myself cart-wandering with my middle-aged compatriots, each trying desperately to remember exactly why we were there, lost souls trying to find The Promised Land or, at the very least, the jasmine rice and some hot mustard.

As I stood in the cat and dog aisle, I had myself a little tiny revelation. 

Actually, I wasn’t alone; it was a joint revelation with a nice young man in hospital gear—those green suits that surgeons wear on all those medical TV shows. So I can only assume he was either a doctor or an escapee of some type. Regardless, we both happened into the Petapalooza aisle at the same time.

Suddenly, as I stood paralyzed by the enormity of dog food choices, I realized that doctor man, too, was stone still, head cocked to the side slightly, trying to pick one object out of this entire football field-sized grocery aisle—nothing but animal food as far as the eye could see. If I squinted, I could see the human dairy case at the end of the aisle, but it was a long way there.

There was food for regular puppies, premature puppies, puppies with a teeny weight problem, and puppies with anxiety disorders. There was food for senior dogs, seniors with tooth and gum issues, seniors with depression, overweight adult dogs, dogs allergic to wheat, low-carb, and your basic vegan version. I had never been struck silent by this aisle before, but as I looked at the abundant selection, I realized that many dogs on this planet eat better than humans. Far better.

Our eyes met, doctor man’s and mine, our confusion over the choices obvious at a glance. Meanwhile, “music” played in the background, a soundtrack to our dilemma. And as I listened, I realized it was a rousing Musak rendition of classic Rolling Stones, lilting strings plucking “You can’t always get what you want.” How appropriate as I debated dog food choices. “But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” Keith Richards must be spinning in his…oh? He’s still alive? Ah, yes, the inspiration behind my dear Johnny’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” But back to the puppy chow—What do I want? What do I need? Which will I get?

How many different kinds of dog food do we really need in this universe of ours? Or shampoo? Or toothbrushes or razors or candy or sanitary napkins or biscuits in a can, another altar at which I had found myself floundering recently.  Buttered? Flaky, non-flaky, man-sized, big as your head? Buttermilk? Grands? Big & Flaky? Small & Dry? Homestyle? Are all these choices Useful? Helpful? Meaningful? Obscene? Forgive me, but I have to ask: Is it possible that we live in a world where snowball makers are necessary? What, kids can’t ball up their own snow anymore? We’ve solved world hunger and can now move on to bigger and better things, is that it?

A few years ago, I gave up clothing with patterns.

Solids only, from then on. Oh, of course, there are a few hangers-on, scarves with prints, blouses with swirls of some pseudo Italian origin like the end papers of old books, but since that year, I haven’t bought clothing except in solid colors, the sartorial equivalence of narrowing my dog food choices to one brand.

I read that designer Donna Karan has five identical black suits that she wears everyday, a solution that appealed to me mightily. Simplify! I narrowed the scope of clothing to a few examples of each category: 2 dress pants, 2 suits, 2 skirts, a numerical system no doubt influenced by all those Noah tales in Vacation Bible School; perhaps I thought they’d multiply if left alone in the vast closet sea.

Each in solid colors (great for travel and for matching, an adult version of Garanimals!), all reminiscent of the solids of Uccello, those armoured men as systems of solids extrapolated in space in “The Battle of San Romano,” no Burberry plaids or Diane von Furstenberg swirls or Lily Pulitzer pink flowers in his Renaissance eye. It was really only a matter of time. Having written my Thesis on the solids in Uccello (as they appear in William Gaddis’s masterpiece, The Recognitions, of course, that fulcrum around which all my studies somehow revolved), I was bound to get back to them; I guess I just didn’t think it would be in terms of wardrobe, but you just never know. Wouldn’t that nice man who fell asleep in my Thesis Defense meeting be surprised?

A few years before the clothing simplification, I had realized that my life was too complicated. Flying too much, too many clothes to dry clean between trips, too many different little notebooks in which I kept notes and then couldn’t find them, so I worked on simplifying.

I consolidated all those notebooks into one – a black and red one for each year, marked 2004, 2005, 2006. If I’ve thought it this year, it’s there in the 2005 one. Of course, that doesn’t help keep topics together across years, but don’t complicate things for me. I’m an early adopter of technology, so I have all the (now discarded) PDAs you can imagine—what can I say? I like fountain pen on paper too much, the feel of it one of the most satisfying things on earth to me. Well, besides peanut butter milkshakes, a good massage, a certain Gene Hackman film, watching my children sleep, and remembering life in Munich by listening to Jethro Tull’s “Minstrel in the Gallery.”

The only other thing I could think to de-complicate was how I drink my coffee.

At the time, I was a cream and sugar drinker, always intent on achieving the right shade, but how cumbersome to have the flight attendant stand there poking the little plastic tray of fake creamer and sugar at me while I struggled to hold the little cup of bad coffee across the lap of seatmates, so I decided the only thing I could do with any success to simplify my life was to start drinking my coffee black—yes! Black! I would say with alacrity! I drink my coffee Black! None of that mamby pamby sugary dairy crap for me – no, I’m a simple person with simple needs, I’ll have it Black! No super grande mocha coca frappa non-fat organic free trade soy latte cino, no.

[Of course, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am married to a man who refuses to go Starbucking by using those weeny size names they have – his is strictly a small, medium, or large world. And I did marry John because he always wore black jeans, black cowboy boots, and heavily starched white oxford shirts, so starched that the pockets were sealed shut. Well, there were a few other reasons, like the way he chops red pepper into tee-niny little pieces, but the simple B&W cowboy uniform was high on the list.]

Hey, life is made up of incremental change. Don’t belittle my coffee revolution. It was all I could handle at the time. I was proud to find something doable, a “low-hanging fruit” as all those management consultants say, something immediately changeable, achievable. I drink my coffee black to this very day.

Liberated by the simplicity of black coffee, in 2003 I gave up toxic people. So, four years in a row, revolutionary change: solid clothing, black coffee, toxic people, black ‘n red notebooks. I shudder to think what 2006 will bring.

~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~

Drink your coffee black. Wear solid clothing. Stick with one kind of dog food. Use one notebook. Give up toxic people. Make your own snowballs.

Clear off your big ‘ol desk.

Free yourself up for the amazing things that come only when there’s space in your head, heart, closet.