Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. ~~henry david thoreau, Walden

In this first week of summer vacation, I find myself guilty of overreacting to every spilled drop of water and every word spoken by others. I feel out of sorts; misplaced; without a space to call my own.

None of these are true, of course. I am home for the next 9 weeks or so, home with my family, and home under my own roof, in my own space, where I get to say how dirty or clean my desk is. The derailment, I think, comes from embracing what “living deliberately” is all about.

We get in a groove, don’t we, living this way or that? As a teacher, I spend 9 months working intensely with hundreds of students and dozens of colleagues in a very electric environment. I cannot walk down two consecutive hallways without greeting someone who shares that experience with me. There is nothing like it in the world, and even if you are not directly related to the experience of that electricity, you can feel the hum in your step, as the jazz band practices for an upcoming show or dance company brings the stage wood to life; maybe the hum is in the learning itself, where no words can capture the resonance of minds gathering, assimilating, sharing newly discovered meanings. You don’t have to see it or hear it to feel it. You just have to open yourself up to receive it.

Much like the everyday sounds we take for granted around us. Stop for just a moment and listen to what’s going on around you. Maybe you can hear the hum of traffic moving along outside, or maybe that mockingbird’s back in your front tree, and he just continues to sing and sing, whether you are listening or not. These are sounds that have been humming around you this entire time; all you had to do was open up to them and allow them to come in.

The hum that continues at school is within me now, but I cannot look to this summer environment to match it, to harmonize with it. This home has its own hum, and I need to hear what it has to say, align and be a part of this groove, this summer soundtrack of life, and embrace it fully.

It seems to me that this is one of the easiest ways to avoid derailment from those spilled drops or misinterpreted words. Open your mind, your heart. Listen to the hum. Resonate….and simply flow.

Only then will we enjoy this new hum. We never got off the tracks; we simply changed the scenery a little along the journey.

A note to my readers: The Fine 99 is a new series of essays focusing on my beliefs of what is most important in life. After I am finished with this series, I’ll see what I’ve written to see if it’s worthy of a collection of essays to pitch as a book. I’ll let the angle, the threads and the themes emerge as they will without too much forethought. Otherwise, I’ll feel a little boxed in to write exclusively about this or that, in this way or that way…If in the end a collection of essays rises from these words, then I’ll take the next step in publishing them. If not, well then I’m sure the ride will serve some greater purpose that I need not mind myself with at this moment.

What is your fine 99?

Simplify, simplify, simplify!
~henry david thoreau

18 June 2006

It is only the third day of summer vacation, but I already feel overwhelmed by the amount of “stuff” piled high on my desk and around my chair. In fact, there is simply too much stuff in this room, and I know it is ridiculous and impossible to consider, but I literally feel as if I cannot breathe as well in this room. There is too much stuff, too much junk, and it clutters my thoughts, my air, my living.

But this room is just a metaphor for my life in general. It seems that, everywhere I go, there is just too much stuff around me, and the tough part to acknowledge is that it’s due in large part to choices I have made. These piles have not been thrust upon me; I have either chosen them to be in my life, or I have not refused their self-invitations to join me.

Why do any of us do this? I think it is a combination of two things:

1. wanting to live so fully that I do not let opportunities go by without seizing them, and that often breeds a lot of stuff: papers, bags, camera equipment, cd carrying cases, too many clothes, and
2. protecting myself from the possibilities of what may be from living a simple life; or, more boldly put: a life lived without piles, blankets, covers, walls, barriers. What does it mean to live a life simply, a life without covers?

My friends who have been around the sun a few more times than I tell me that they reached a point where the essentials in their lives came down to 12 books, 5 cds, 1 journal, 1 pen. Everything else, if taken away from them, would hardly be noticed, if missed at all.

Today, I will clear my desk, clean this room, so that I may breathe a little better, a little more simply, and provide room for perhaps clarity, if not outright possibility, for what may be in a simple, uncluttered life.

Try it, too. And I promise: we’ll all refrain from chuckling too loudly when we see who we really are…

A note to my readers: The Fine 99 is a new series of essays focusing on my beliefs of what is most important in life. After I am finished with this series, I’ll see what I’ve written to see if it’s worthy of a collection of essays to pitch as a book. I’ll let the angle, the threads and the themes emerge as they will without too much forethought. Otherwise, I’ll feel a little boxed in to write exclusively about this or that, in this way or that way…If in the end a collection of essays rises from these words, then I’ll take the next step in publishing them. If not, well then I’m sure the ride will serve some greater purpose that I need not mind myself with at this moment.

What is your fine 99?