By Maida Korte

“You are exhausted, sweet one, exhausted from all the trying and the not trying, and you are struggling to trust life again. It’s all too much for the poor organism, isn’t it?”- Jeff Foster

          Each new day brings new complications.  Responsibilities, obligations, to-do lists, all form the skeletal framework on which we hang the tapestry of our life. A seemingly never-ending stream of get it done now and don’t stop, pumps out directives that must be obeyed.  Alarm clocks bleep at us before we even open our eyes, telling us to wake up, get going, hurry hurry, a staccato note that plays out in our heads moving us forward like a drum-beat into battle.

When we are very young, these responsibilities are slight and mastering a day includes small tasks mixed with large quantities of fun and play.  But too soon that is nixed and duties replace make-believe.  Creating a cadence of chores, school, home-work, and sports is an established normative for modern day children.  The beckoning and pleading of parents to move their kids quickly, urgently, from one task to the next has the only respite being swaths of time where dead pool eyes angle downward towards small and large screens.  Frantic appeals by over-whelmed parents to get in the car, get out of the car, run run now no time creates a frenetic sensibility and we are going mad in the clenched mental strait-jackets we have put ourselves in.  The tyranny of the urgent pauses reflection, or stops it dead in its tracks and we are forgetting how to ponder, consider, listen, and respond.  We schedule down-time for spring break or one week in August right before it all starts up again because summer sports and summer school and summer projects allow nine days of fun in the sun and you better like it. 

I am no stranger to responsibility and the need to keep kids busy.  We all know about the warnings of idle hands, but I cannot help but think that a frenetic pace brings little reflection and the ability to make good decisions as a result.

Chores were a part of my upbringing with lists for six kids posted on the refrigerator.  A resigned and muttered grumbling accompanied a disgruntled sibling upon occasion, if the task given was not the one wished for, but we got to it, running out the door as though freed from shackles once the tasks were completed.  Over the shoulder hollers of when and where were answered as the gap between parent and child enlarged with the sudden escape into the outdoors to do heaven knows what. I look back and see how brick-blocks of trust were built between parent and off-spring, by loosing a single thread, one strand at a time, from the proverbial apron strings of child-raising.  Never cutting in a sudden rush because of shouted demands to let me go, but rather, a frayed rag tag of wearing out the child-hood tenants of watchful parental eyes, to be replaced with decisions of my own. 

I have my own lessons in simplicity abandoned.  A long time ago I opened a design studio, having previously worked from an office in my basement.  Staff would come to the back door, let themselves in, and I could run up and down the stairs attending to family as easily as working on a project.  This all changed when I drove the first day to the yes amazing space that would become my first location for business outside the home.  A wide-open expanse that allowed for multiple work stations, drafting tables, a production room, display areas and large windows where I fell in love with the endless possibilities.  Existing old brick and even older wood floors braced my longing for this location.  But gaining expansion had me lose the simplicity my home office gave to my life and my children.  I see that now.  I gave up simple and gained anxiety and I want simple back. 

It took me many years to hunt for simple and tackle it in the underbrush of life.  Age brings clearer eyes and if wishes were horses……….well, I would have ridden simple into the work of my future.  Eventually anxiety won out and the ravages of time tainted with worry led me to renew my vow of untangling the knots of obligation that I had brought upon myself and my family.  I joyfully discovered that it is never too late to do the right thing.  I am back in my basement after decades outside of it, and the gentle sounds of life above me seep into me like tea in a porcelain cup. 

I went at it ferociously as I dismantled the urgent and replaced it with contemplation and the glorious obligations that family and friends bring to life.  I made decisions to schedule down-time and designed a reading room where I take time to nestle every day.  I work and write and revel in a hot cup of coffee and a conversation with a daughter.  I know the on-goings of my siblings and my friends remember now what I look like. My husband gets to see me as we hand each other the section of the newspaper we know the other one likes best in wordless conversation.  The front door opens and our grand-daughters come in as we fold the paper and rise to greet them.

Bringing simple back into our lives might be hard won for some.  If the battle is to forage ahead for a peaceful meadow of time, then brandish your swords and make haste.  Fighting for what is right might not always be an idea, but could be a place to ponder them in peace before the next venture into the unknown of time and space.