Why does everything have to do so much heavy lifting in this life?
Why do mugs have to be philosophical and t-shirts whimsical? Why does a cup of coffee have to carry the same flavor profile of a pint of Baskin Robbins? Coffee is a flavor.
Why do teachers have to be parents and counselors and anti-warfare tactical specialists? Why must a dog be a therapist? Why do we need a laundry detergent with the scent of a wildflower field after a spring rain? Potato chips that taste like fries with ketchup …?
Can’t soap just clean, mugs just hold a drink? Can’t we let coffee be coffee and dogs be dogs, romping around sniffing things and bothering cats?
Did we get bored with plain? Have our tech-saturated brains gotten so used to being over-stimulated that we need all these weird layers of action around us? Where is this all headed?
I was very curious about that back-to-the-land moment during the pandemic when everyone was baking pies and growing beets. Everyone was talking about how nice it felt to do so little, to do plain old things like finish a puzzle, take a nap, eat with family members.
Of course that was short-lived and we’re back to life in the fast lane, which, as the Eagles (band, not football team) sang, will surely make you lose your mind.
I wonder if this is why everyone is so tired all the time. Which, strangely, seems to be happening at a time when no one is able to sleep, too.
I mean I’m not an advocate for the Little House on the Prairie lifestyle. That idea has been monetized to hell and back. To note: the woman on Instagram who is the CEO of Ballerina Farm. She makes Martha Stewart look like a varsity slacker, romping around her Utah playhouse with something like eight kids (I’ve lost track), decorating for the holidays, cooking everything from scratch, and competing for Mrs. America in her spare time. She often wears a frilly apron, and she stops to do ballet moves when the kids are … I have no idea where the kids go, though not to school, naturally.
Of course she puts sausage and stuffing in a pumpkin for breakfast. But wait … first she makes the bread, then she makes the stuffing, then she cuts open the pumpkin and bakes it all…? Isn’t everyone rolling on the ground, screaming and crying with starvation at this point? Gosh, I remember very vividly the meltdowns I endured in the time it took to open a fruit roll-up when my kids were little.
Phew. Hold on. That was a major sidebar. I practically broke a sweat on that one.
Real farm life is hard. I know because I’ve lived near and been friends with actual farmers during the thirty years I’ve been in Vermont. I don’t recommend it at all, unless your husband is the heir to the Jet Blue fortune, as is the case of the Juilliard grad, Mrs. Perpetually Pregnant America Ballerina.
The problem with this stuff, this pretend simple life persona is that she makes it look and seem like anyone can do all that she’s doing and have fun and always adore their partner and kids. Which they can’t. Unless there is a staff running around behind all the scenes that are cleverly crafted for public consumption.
That’s how that works.
I’m assuming that you, like me, do not have a staff. Not today, anyway.
Why do we think we have to do and be so much? Ballerina Farm is pure comedy, but unfortunately most people don’t see it that way. A lot of people think it’s real and awesome, like caramel marshmallow flavored coffee and a mug with a profound message that will undoubtedly jump-start you into the most amazing day of your whole life!
A mug is just a mug and coffee is a bean grown in a tropical climate, usually by underpaid farmers. Made pretentious only in its movement through the great money machine that convinces you you need (deserve!) the fanciest most delicious coffee drink in the world!
I most definitely do not want us all to turn from our lives toward a pretend Instagram-fab ‘simple’ lifestyle. But I do wonder if we might be healthier, better sleepers, less stressed, more content, if we could just accept some basic realities: a chair lets you sit, it doesn’t need to give you a massage or help you get up. If you can’t get out of your chair by yourself, something’s off and you should work on that. You don’t really need your t-shirt to tell the world how you feel. You just need something to cover your nakedness. Your bra does not need to lift and separate; your boobs, by design, fall down.
I mean, come on … how great is a potato chip? Made with a real potato, crispy fried just right with a little salt? Perfection.
You’re picking up what I’m putting down, right?
But there’s this, too, and you know it will always circle back around to death with me.
If you can live your life seeing through all the nonsense, letting a mug do its job holding your plain, perfect coffee. If you can allow your dog to just lay quietly beside you while you do the hard work on your emotional life, if you can accept that you are ok the way you are and see the beauty in a rock and the stars, then when it’s all over you will be content letting your loved ones put you in a wicker basket or a shroud and lower you into the ground. You will have lived a satisfying life, not expecting your clothing to reshape you or your moisturizer to de-age you; you understand that everything holds an elegant simplicity and finding that is one of life’s great joys. And you will be able to transition away from here gently and peacefully, dust to dust to stardust to infinity.
Amen. xomo
I so look forward to these gifts in my inbox! Loved this one.
Springsteen’s thoughts on the human condition of never being satisfied.
“Poor man wanna be rich, / Rich man wanna be king / And a king ain’t satisfied / ’Til he rules everything” — Badlands