Uncategorized

Junktique Memory Palace, part 2: a place for everything and everything everywhere

 Do not encumber your mind with useless thoughts. What good does it do to brood on the past or anticipate the future? Remain in the simplicity of the present moment. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am. ~Thomas Merton

In his 20\’s a smart man — if he learns anything at all — learns to embrace failure as an educational experience as well as the importance of reflection. During his 30\’s, a smart man … if he\’s paying any attention at all … begins to understand the space — physically, metaphysically, spiritually, and ontologically —  he takes up in the world.

By the time he reaches his mid-40\’s — whether he\’s smart or not — a man stumbles upon who he is in the world, regardless of whether he\’s aware of the space(s) he occupies or not.

And if there is anything about me that\’s true, it\’s this: I\’ve always been particular about how I inhabit my living space.

It\’s not that I\’m a neat freak. At least, I don\’t think I\’m a neat freak. I mean… no. No, I am NOT a neat freak.

But I DO tend to think of it as working really hard in order to be lazy. I always put my keys in the same place. I always put glasses in the same place. I recognize two basic categories of things:

  1. stuff, and 
  2. stuff-without-a-home. 

As I wrote about in a previous blog, my spaces — mental or otherwise — are filled with things from which I derive a certain amount of comfort. The way I do things and how I organize things makes total and complete sense to me. By way of an example –

We own this lovely fruit bowl. I believe it was a wedding gift. I won\’t describe it, so, for the sake of illustration, picture a fruit bowl you would find lovely. Because we tend to eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, we have a small table in the kitchen that has become the Spot Where Produce Lives. After we go shopping, the table sort of looks like one of those Thanksgiving cornucopias exploded. We\’re very fortunate that we\’re able to eat healthy in spite of eternally operating on a feast and famine budget.  But because of our sometimes bountiful amount of fruits and veggies — and because my daughter is a vegan and so we tend to have a lot of rabbit lettuce type things on hand — that lovely bowl was buried, never to be seen.

Yes, I knew it was there. But I didn\’t like that a lovely little bowl — a very thoughtful wedding present at that — wasn\’t in a place where I could see it at a glance.
So I moved the bowl. I moved it next to the toaster on the short side of the kitchen sink.

This created no small amount of controversy with my daughter, who — like me — is someone who likes to have things organized and in place… 
for the most part.

I\’m certain she often looks at it and ponders moving back to the exploded cornucopia table. My wife, who has the wisdom to stay out of such odd and ultimately pointless conundrums, simply says \”Well, that\’s where it lives now.\”

Lately I\’ve come around to embracing the notion that my need for a certain amount order is simply who I am rather than something I ought to try and subvert. I do think sharing a home with others makes me more thoughtful about the impact my home-for-everything attitude has on other people, because the truth is, there are times when things need to be out of order. If things never change, if things don\’t move, then sometimes I don\’t see the need for something to change. And since the only constant in the universe IS change, it\’s good to be able to roll with it, too.

Just don\’t move the fruit bowl.

If you like what you\’re reading here, check out my work for sale on Amazon  www.amazon.com/author/mickparsons You can also throw a little in the tip jar:

Standard

Leave a Reply