Slow Down

I'm currently on the cusp (oh, what a humongous cusp you are) of finishing a very overdue and very large editing project. Every time I go deeper into this project, which covers philosophy, physics, the cosmos, the entire world as we know it, I come away with so many huge ideas in my head, juggling them like knives that might slice this naive and fragile thing I call optimism, that all I really seek is something small. Something simple.

A lot of this has come out in what I've been writing here over the past few days. No roaming nostalgic trips, just tiny links. No grand fears, no nail-biting over what life's next challenge will be. No books, just songs. Because, you see, I'm simplifying.

Editing, at its heart, is simplifying. Pruning. Edging. Gardening metaphors abound. But even the best gardeners need help from the bees. I can edit on my own on paper, but when it comes to my own life, I need some bees.

There are things that have kept me sane with their simplicity (and apologies for my recent repetitiveness, but isn't there simplicity in reuse?):

Bowerbirds. Their album escorts me home at night, when I walk through a disjointed, anachronistic city post-rush hour. (My Old Kentucky Blog's mp3 explosion of Bowerbirds tracks, and Bowerbirds are playing at - yes - Bowery Ballroom in October.)

MFK Fisher's eating advice. Every night lately when I get home I'm exhausted. Tonight I reached into the vegetable bowl, pulled out an heirloom tomato and a zebra tomato I had picked up at the farmer's market, sliced them, and ate them with some salt. I might eat a bowl of sugar snap peas. Or a bar of dark chocolate. One night, if I'm lucky, I might just eat a baguette and whatever cheese is in the fridge. I worried over what this might do to me, until I remembered what MFK says.

[I]nstead of combining a lot of dull and sometimes actively hostile foods into one routine meal after another, three times a day and every day, year after year, in the earnest hope that you are being a good provider, try this simple plan: Balance the day, not each meal in the day.

So my little meal of a plate of tomatoes doesn't seem so ridiculous after all.

mav's entries @ port2port and 3191. I can't say enough how often her pictures and words have calmed me down, made me breathe a bit slower, wake up early to sit in silence over breakfast as the sun rises in the morning. I read her in the hopes that I won't lose inspiration while I'm on this forced hiatus.

Wait, did I just say "hiatus"? After writing nearly 500 words on simplicity? You call this editing the things your life? Slow down. Breathe. Nearly done...

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