“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver (1935–2019), Pulitzer Prize–winning American poet.
It is a truth universally known that, for time immemorial, I have done my best to bike with something approaching—but never achieving—religious regularity. A corollary truth is that I do so while listening to gospel music.
One morning a few weeks ago was no exception, but something exceptional happened. I was listening to the Old Time Gospel Hour Quartet Station with all the old songs playing, energizing–nearly electrifying–my indoor pedaling.
“Peace, Be Still.”
“Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.”
“I’ll Fly Away.”
All the hymns I grew up on and still love.
And right about the time I started getting into the rhythm and my heart rate started getting into the vigorous zone, an unfamiliar hymn started playing. I didn’t know the lyrics, and I didn’t recognize the voices.
I was stunned. But instead of allowing myself to be slain by the newness surrounding me, I found myself saying,
“Alexa, next.”
I wanted to get back into my old, familiar comfortable groove.
I can’t even tell you the name of the new song that I skipped. But that’s okay because as I kept on pedaling to all the familiar songs I knew to be true, I started reflecting on what I had just done, and a few Robert Frost lines from Robert Frost’s “The Sound of Trees”:
I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place?
The familiar. I like it. I suspect most of us do.
We like our coffee in the same cup, maybe even in the same chair, at roughly the same time every morning. We have our side of the bed. Our place at the table. Our route to the grocery store.
We have our rituals, too. The things we do without ever deciding to do them. We read the same morning news. We reach for the same cereal, the same brand of toothpaste, the same old linen shirt that should have been thrown away years ago but fits us in ways a new one never could.
We love the same sounds, too. A clock ticking in another room. Rain on the roof. The furnace kicking on. A dog sighing at our feet. A voice calling from somewhere else in the house. The opening notes of a song we haven’t heard in twenty years, yet somehow we know exactly what comes next.
There’s comfort in all of that. Real comfort. And who could blame us for wanting to surround ourselves with what we know? Life gives us enough surprises without our going out looking for them.
So we build little islands of familiarity wherever we can. We arrange our days with things we recognize. Things we trust. Things that ask very little of us except that we show up.
Maybe that’s why I said it so quickly that morning.
“Alexa, next.”
I wasn’t rejecting the song. I was reaching for lyrics I already knew. But here’s the thing. The familiar may ground us. It may comfort us, reassure us, even sustain us. I would not want to live without it.
But astonishment? Astonishment usually comes from somewhere else. It comes from the thing we didn’t expect. The road we didn’t plan to take. The book we almost didn’t read. The person we nearly didn’t meet. The idea we were certain wasn’t worth considering. The flower that suddenly appears where we know perfectly well we never planted one.
And then there’s the song I told Alexa to skip. That’s the one I keep coming back to. What if I had listened? Maybe I wouldn’t have liked it. Maybe three minutes later I would have forgotten it anyway. Not everything unfamiliar is waiting to astonish us and change our lives. Sometimes a new song is just a new song.
But sometimes it isn’t.
Sometimes something outside the comfortable boundaries of what we already know slips in and unsettles us just enough. It makes us look again. Listen again. Think again. It gives us something we didn’t know we were missing because, until that moment, we didn’t know it existed.
And isn’t that where so much of life’s beauty comes from? Not always from the trees whose sounds we have heard forever. Sometimes from that other noise. The one close by. The one we almost didn’t hear.
Maybe that’s all the challenge needs to be.
Not to abandon the familiar. Not to stop loving the songs we know by heart or the rituals that give our days their shape. Not to go wandering off in search of astonishment every waking minute.
Just to leave a little room for it. To take a different road now and then. To order something we’ve never tasted. To pick up the book we ordinarily would pass by. To talk with someone whose life has followed a path nothing like our own. To entertain an idea long enough to understand it before deciding what we think of it. To listen when another noise comes close to our dwelling place.
I wish I could tell you that the next morning I found that unfamiliar hymn and listened to every note. I didn’t. I don’t even know what it was.
Maybe that makes the lesson better. Some opportunities circle back. Some don’t. And sometimes we never know what beauty, surprise, or possibility was waiting inside the thing we were too quick to skip.
So I’m going to keep my old songs. Every one of them. I’m going to sing along when they play, pedal a little harder when the spirit moves me, and take all the comfort they have to give.
But the next time an unfamiliar song starts playing? I think I’ll listen, at least for a little while.
“The facts may remain the same. The narrative doesn’t have to.” —Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947).
I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again.
Flip the narrative.
You read it right. But I want you to read it again.
Flip the narrative.
When the daily news overwhelms you, flip the narrative.
When technology frightens you, flip the narrative.
When society disappoints you, flip the narrative.
When family and friends let you down, flip the narrative.
When your body reminds you that you’re getting older, flip the narrative.
When life seems to be shrinking, flip the narrative.
When hope begins to flicker, flip the narrative.
And if you think you know what I’m going to say next, I’m making my point.
Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because the daily news is not the whole story. Headlines are paid to interrupt your breakfast, not to nourish your soul. They shine spotlights on what is broken, while millions of quiet acts of kindness slip by unnoticed every single day. If all you read is the news, you will eventually believe darkness has won. It hasn’t. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because technology is neither angel nor devil. It is a tool, and tools have no conscience of their own. We lend them ours. Every generation has feared the next invention, certain it would be the one to finally replace the human heart. It never has. The hands change. The fear stays the same. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because society is more than its loudest voices. Every day, strangers hold doors, volunteers serve meals, neighbors check on neighbors, teachers stay late, and someone somewhere chooses grace over anger. Those stories rarely make the evening news, but they make the world worth living in. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because the people who love us are gloriously, frustratingly human. They disappoint us. We disappoint them. If we measure every relationship by its failures, we will eventually stand alone. Better to count forgiveness as often as we count offenses. Better to remember that imperfect love is still love. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because every birthday steals something and gives something back. Your knees may protest. Your memory may hesitate. Your hair may surrender. But wisdom quietly takes a seat beside you. Perspective grows stronger. Small things become precious. You stop trying to impress everyone and start noticing what truly matters. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because a life that seems to be shrinking is often becoming more focused. Doors close. Dreams change. The horizon may draw nearer. Yet, somehow, the heart discovers that depth can be every bit as magnificent as distance. Sometimes life doesn’t become smaller. It becomes richer. Flip the narrative.
Flip the narrative because hope is not pretending everything is fine. Hope looks reality squarely in the eye and refuses to let despair have the final word. Hope has outlived kingdoms, survived wars, buried loved ones, endured heartbreak, and still gets up the next morning expecting light.
“Never mistake the undone for the unworthy. The desk may be cluttered. The life is not.”
—Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947. Altar ego—with an alter ego, too, of course. He ministers and he meddles. Life coach without credentials. Available for lectures, upbraidings, and unsolicited reminders of everything you’ve already accomplished.)
Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies. Maybe, all times. I know I am.
It doesn’t matter how much I get done, it’s always the undone that grabs hold of me in my waking hours and throws me into a tiff.
Just the other day—just as dawn was breaking—I sprang up in bed, asking myself:
“Where did it go? Where did it all go?”
Not my life, mind you. That’s still very much in progress.
I meant January and February—two months that often keep me snowed in on my mountaintop here in the Shenandoah Valley. And this year—once and for all—they were supposed to be the two perfect months to bring order to chaos. To organize my office.
Boxes. Amazon boxes, to be precise—a small mountain of them, stacked near the woodstove like a cardboard monument to every good intention I’ve ever had. Some are open. Some are not. All of them smile at me. That relentless Amazon smile, curved and cheerful and absolutely unbothered by my shame. I have begun to suspect they are multiplying when I’m not looking.
Desk and worktable. Buried. Buried under manila envelopes, unopened mail, a box of highlighters, a coffee mug that may or may not still contain coffee, and enough paper to reforest a modest hillside. The lamp burns bravely through the chaos like a lighthouse in a nor’easter.
Even the plants have opinions. Two magnificent specimens—sprawling dramatically across their ornate iron stands—have taken matters into their own fronds. One has sent a long, accusatory leaf directly toward my leather chair. As if pointing.
Pointing. Yes, pointing. The same way the ghost of my gray-haired grade school history teacher would point and declare with the wrath of an angry God:
“A cluttered desk is the devil’s workshop.”
And between Mrs. Snyder’s admonitions and my lament—”Where did it go? Where did it all go?”—Poor Brentford appeared as if in a vision rising up from nowhere in particular and everywhere at once.
“Where did it all go, you ask? Where did it all go? I’ll tell you exactly where it went. Pull up a chair if you can find one in that brain of yours, all cluttered now with nonsense.”
I thought I knew for sure where his harangue was headed. But for once he surprised. He did not stoop so low as to rap knuckles with any of the cliches from his repertoire of wisdom.
Not once did I hear,
“Time and tide wait for no one.”
Not once did I hear,
“Make hay while the sun shines.”
I didn’t even hear the one I was certain he would speak with calm certainty,
“Lost time is never found again.”
He didn’t recite any of those things.
Instead, he cleared his throat with great ceremony and delivered his first knuckle rap with the precision of a surgeon and the satisfaction of a man who has been waiting a very long time.
“Only handle it once.”
He let it hang there. Just those four words. Floating in the air above the Amazon boxes and the buried desk and the manila envelopes and the coffee mug of uncertain vintage.
“Your words. Well, Grace Reed’s words, if we’re being precise. Your Copyright Office colleague. The woman whose office was lean, mean, and sparse. The woman whose wisdom you borrowed, researched, published, celebrated, and then—apparently—left to ride around in the Jeep with the junk mail.”
He fixed me with a look that left no room for argument.
“Don’t bemoan where it all went. You know fully well. And you know exactly what to do.”
Then Poor Brentford’s voice softened. Just slightly. Just enough.
“Do you remember what you wrote on January 15th, 2024? You raised your Bunnahabhain to all the tarriers, the delayers, and the occasional shelver. You said, and I quote, ‘Here’s to the to-morrowers, the champions of It can wait until tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow is just a delay away from today.'”
He smiled. For the first time.
“And do you remember Scarlett?
“She understood something you sometimes forget. Tomorrow is not surrender. Tomorrow is strategy.”
Poor Brentford gestured grandly at the Amazon boxes.
“Your Tara is a little more cardboard than hers. But the principle holds.”
He straightened his jacket.
“The office will get cleaned. One day. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the day after. Or sometime before the Amazon boxes learn to walk.”
“Scarlett managed. So will you.”
But Poor Brentford wasn’t finished. He stood there, poised to deliver his final and most devastating knuckle rap. Quietly. Almost tenderly.
“Forget the cluttered office for now. I want you to remember something you wrote, something about a young professor who stopped you in a hallway and handed you an offprint with four words inscribed on the front.”
He paused.
“This is life everlasting.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“You asked whether he was suggesting that we live on forever through what we share with others: ideas immortalized in print. You answered your own question. Here you are, nearly fifty years later, speaking his name. Professor Myerson continues to live.”
He leaned in close.
“And so will you. Through every word you have ever written. Eight books. More than a million words. Scholarship and essays that will outlast every Amazon box in that corner.”
“THAT is your life everlastin’. Now act like it.”
Just when my chair started getting uncomfortable, Poor Brentford had the nerve to tell me to shout out:
“Get behind me, Satan.”
I sprang up at once because in that command I recognized my own mother’s voice. Over and over again I had heard her rebuke the Devil whenever she faced her own pole of proverbial chaos.
Only then did I realize what Poor Brentford had done.
He had serenaded me with snippets of my own advice—counsel I had been publishing right here in this column for years.
I could hardly be offended.
I looked again at the Amazon boxes. The buried desk. The pointing plant.
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” —Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592). French pioneer of the personal essay.
I tried to blame it on the boots.
I tried to blame it on the coat.
I tried to blame it on the sweater.
I tried to blame it on the scales.
I even tried to blame it on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
But I knew deep down inside that on those occasions I made conscious choices to eat the rich foods that I served up for Gary and me, and sometimes for our guests. Turkey first, of course—sliced generously, then followed by ham, salty and sweet, and later a rack of lamb brought out because it felt like the season called for something a little special. Deep-dish pecan pie, glossy and heavy with syrup. Deep-dish apple pie, still warm, the kind that sinks slightly when the knife goes in. Golden fruitcake—dense, fragrant, unapologetic—cut thin and then, somehow, not so thin. Banana nut bread—the healthy version, of course—on the counter, always ready for just one more slice. Candy dishes everywhere, each one holding something different: chocolates, caramels, peppermints, specialty candies meant for guests but sampled daily. Taffy apple salad. Orange fluff salad. Cranberry sauce—homemade, of course—because it wouldn’t be the holidays without it. Gravy poured generously, more than once. Sourdough dinner rolls torn open while still warm, butter melting into the crumb. And wine—one bottle opened, then another, because it paired well, because it was already there, and because winter evenings stretch long. And it was good. All of it was good.
One or two overindulgences wouldn’t have been so bad. But what started with Thanksgiving rolled into Christmas, kept going through New Year’s, and here I am after a prolonged pig-out snow-in, blaming my weight on scales, sweaters, coats, and boots.
I know better. This is a repeat of last year and the year before, stretching back to the start of memory. All along my satiated journey, I knew what was happening. I sensed it in my body. I felt it in my clothes. I saw it in the mirror. Eventually, my day of reckoning came when I stepped on the scales, gasped, and sighed,
“Enough, Brent. Enough.”
I could veer off into a litany about all the reasons I overindulged. I have no doubt that you’ve heard them all already. Heard them all.
But I’ll plate up a few reasons anyway. Food is how we mark time. Holidays, snow days, long evenings, the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s—meals become punctuation marks. We don’t just eat; we commemorate. One dinner leads to another, then another, until the season itself seems to demand a full plate.
Then there’s winter. The quiet. The staying in. Food keeps us company. It warms the house, fills the hours, shapes the day. A loaf on the counter, something sweet after supper, a little more than usual because there’s nowhere else to go and nothing much else to do.
None of this is shocking. None of this is new. But here’s the thing. Knowing why doesn’t change the outcome. It only explains how easily awareness can lag behind—until one morning, one glance, one number brings it all into focus.
I could dwell on all of that. But chances are you can already relate—whether in your own “appetite” life or in some other corner. You can relate to areas where you’ve lost an awareness—areas that need attention. Maybe it’s your perennial garden beds overtaken by weeds. Maybe it’s your inbox overtaken by junk mail. Maybe it’s your personal and spiritual relationships overtaken by inattention. The list of “maybes” goes on and on.
But here’s the good news. We don’t need to rant and rave. We don’t need to blame our metaphorical sweaters, coats, and scales. And we don’t need to blame ourselves.
“Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”
— Brené Brown (b. 1965), American research professor, author, and speaker on vulnerability, courage, and self-worth.
Go ahead! Run reference if you must. You’ll probably confirm what you already suspect. More than once, I’ve asked you to lean in real close and listen as I shout out for all the world to hear something that I think no one in the world should hear. Private should stay private, right? Not always. Here I am about to pull you in and do it all over again.
But this time it’s different. It’s one of those insights I’ve had before—the kind that first comes as a shadow of knowledge, and then, with a turn, reveals itself fully, clad in nothing more than the simplicity that truth always wears.
That’s exactly what happened to me. I was all by myself. My partner Gary—Remember? My Tennessee Gary?—had gone off to Minnesota for his 60th high school reunion and for a family reunion to boot. So it came to be that I dined alone.
I plated my entree with all the attention that might bespeak the 5-star restaurant that I know my kitchen will never be. Yet, I keep right on striving.
The golden-crusted whiting stretched across the plate like a painter’s confident stroke, its edges crisp, its center promising tender flake with the first touch of a fork. Beside it, a tangle of violet cabbage shimmered as though the skillet had coaxed from it not just flavor but light itself—earthy, sweet, and just slightly wild. A sprig of thyme leaned in, whispering green against the purple, while a single blossom, fuchsia and unapologetic, dared to remind me that even supper alone can flirt with beauty.
Then, an hour or so later, I was ready for dessert. Don’t you dare tell anyone—especially Gary—but since I was alone, I decided that a store-bought dessert would do.
It was tiramisu with all the makings of a showstopper—moist sponge, creamy layers, a hint of coffee and chocolate—but there it sat, in its plastic box, reminding me that sometimes dessert doesn’t need fanfare to be enjoyed.
“Fine. I’ll enjoy it straight from the plastic box.”
Just when I was about to grab a fork (but not a plastic one, mind you), I decided that it needed proper plating, too.
It only took a second for me to turn store-bought into five-star. The tiramisu rose in creamy, coffee-kissed layers, draped with curls of chocolate that caught the light just so. Against the deep black plate, a scarlet bloom blazed like a velvet exclamation point, transforming a humble slice into a scene-stealer. Every bite promised richness, every glance was pure seduction on porcelain.
In no time at all, I had done for myself what I do for us all the time. In no time at all, I had done for myself what I would have done for me and Gary if we had been sharing the table that night. I had lifted something ordinary into something memorable. I had taken the plastic box off the table and replaced it with care, intention, beauty. In that small act—so quick, so simple—I realized that I had given myself the very same attention I so easily give to the life we are building together. And I had done it when it mattered just as much—I was alone.
We forget, don’t we? Especially when we are alone. We fall into the trap of thinking that we have to wait for company, for celebration, for some special someone before we let ourselves live five-star. But that’s not so. We don’t have to wait, nor should we. We should use the special napkins every day, especially when we’re alone. We should have flowers on the table every day, especially when we’re alone. We should bring forth all of life’s little graces, especially when we’re alone.
We should always see ourselves as the guest of honor—especially when we are alone, even when the chair across from us is empty.
We should remind ourselves that this kind of self serve isn’t selfish and it’s not uppity. It’s simply a way that we can say “Yes” to ourselves. It’s pulling the good wine from the rack, even on a Tuesday night. It’s plating coleslaw in a little bowl instead of scooping it from the mixing dish. It’s lighting the fireplace in October simply because the first chill makes you want to. It’s cueing up Black Gospel or Acoustic Chill while kneading bread, letting the room swell with music as much as with sourdough. It’s slipping into my favorite blue linen shirt, even if no one but Ruby will see me in it. These are the gestures that matter most—especially when we are alone.
These “alone” moments count. Every single one of them counts. And if we don’t serve ourselves with dignity, who else will?
So, My Dear Readers, let me raise a glass to the hydrangeas cut and arranged, to the figs sliced and drizzled, to the silver chest opened on an ordinary weeknight. Here’s to the quiet supper for one that still deserves a sprig of thyme, and to the tiramisu that—freed from its plastic coffin—reminds me that even the humblest store-bought sweet can rise to the level of celebration.
Because self serve is never second best. It is the altar we lay with linen and light. It is the chalice filled, the bread broken, the sweetness offered. It is the music of a knife against porcelain, the fragrance of thyme rising like incense, the candle flame trembling like a prayer.
Let the plate gleam. Let the glass catch the last gold of evening. Let the blossom burn bright against the dark. Let the feast of one be as radiant as the feast of many.
Be the guest of honor. Your own. Be the blessing at the table. Your own. Be the flame, the flower, the feast. Your own trinity.
Even when we are alone. Especially when we are alone.
Let’s never–for even a moment–forget: We are enough.
won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.
—Lucille Clifton (1936–2010), award-winning American poet and former Poet Laureate of Maryland, celebrated for her spare, powerful verse that gave voice to Black womanhood, resilience, and self-invention.
It hangs there—dripping in crystal like it’s late for a curtain call at the Kennedy Center. A blazing burst of light and glamour. A chandelier so decadently faceted it might’ve been smuggled out of a Versailles estate sale or rescued from a Broadway set mid-strike. And yet, here it is: mounted proudly on a ceiling so low you could toast it with your coffee mug.
Where?
Why, right here on my mountaintop, in my rustic foyer wrapped in pine-paneled nostalgia, with a Shenandoah Valley pie safe, stoically anchoring one side and a polished silver chest on the other. An antique Asian vase—graceful and aloof—presides atop the chest like it’s seen empires rise and fall. Beneath it all, an Oriental runner unspools like a red carpet nobody asked for, but everybody deserves.
And then—just beyond the shimmer—a French door opens into another room, as if the whole scene is a prelude to a slow reveal.
It shouldn’t work. I know that fully well. A chandelier like this belongs somewhere fancy and regal. But guess what? Somehow, its sparkle doesn’t clash with the country charm, at least in my mind. In fact, it crowns it. And you can rest assured. It isn’t a mistake. It’s my way of declaring that my home isn’t just a home. It’s a story–actually, it’s lots of stories–told in light and shadow. And at the center of it all? My refusal to decorate according to rules. I couldn’t even if I wanted to because I have no idea what the rules are.
But a week or so ago, my Tennessee Gary stood smackdab beneath the chandelier—looking right at me, poised (I was certain) on the cusp of praise or profundity. But the next thing I knew, he spoke six words, which made me a tad uncertain about my certainty.
“I’m not sure it belongs there.”
“What?”
“The chandelier.”
“Well, I think it’s perfect. I wasn’t about to leave it in my Capitol Hill home when I moved here. It cost me a small fortune, and besides—I like it.”
That ended it. For then.
But a few days later, Gary brought it up again.
“Actually,” he said, studying the ceiling with a fresh softness, “the chandelier grows on you. It looks quite good there.”
If that’s not a kiss-and-make-amends moment, then lay one on me.
I grinned and agreed.
And let me tell you—that right there? That’s the moment that stuck. Not the first comment, but the second. The way Gary circled back. The way he didn’t double down, but opened up. That takes grace. That takes someone who sees with more than just their eyes.
He didn’t just help me see the chandelier differently. He helped me see the whole house—and maybe even myself—with a little more curiosity. A little more clarity. And that’s when I started walking through the rooms again—not to judge or justify, but to really look. Through his eyes. Through my eyes. Through the eyes of everyone who’s ever stepped inside and wondered how on earth all of this could possibly make sense.
And yet—to me—all of this makes perfectly good sense. Placed with memory, not trend. Positioned not for symmetry but sentiment. A lifetime’s worth of objects tucked wherever I could fit them, arranged with a kind of chaotic confidence that, somehow, glows.
But, still, I heard echoes rumbling around in my memory’s storehouse:
“It’s so homey.”
“I feel so comfortable here.”
“Wow! It’s like walking through a museum.”
In the midst of those echoes, I figured out how to find comfort: find someone else who decorates the way I do! It didn’t take me long at all before I remembered someone who had lived—and decorated—with the same truth: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
As soon as I had that recall moment, I scooched up beside her so close that I could peek over her shoulder as she penned a letter to Kate Upson Clark. And Lord have Mercy Jesus! You can’t imagine my joy when I realized that folks said the same sort of things about her home decor as they say about my mine:
“I light this room with candles in old brass candlesticks. I have dull blue-and-gilt paper on the walls, and a striped Madagascar rug over a door, and a fur rug before the hearth. It is one of the queerest looking places you ever saw, I expect. You ought to see the Randolph folks when they come in. They look doubtful in the front room, but they say it is ‘pretty.’ When they get out into the back room, they say it ‘looks just like me’. I don’t know when I shall ever find out if that is a compliment.” (Letter 46, August 12, 1889. The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Edited with Biographical/Critical Introductions and Annotations by Brent L. Kendrick. Scarecrow, 1985)
I was thrilled to know that I was “keeping house,” if you will, in style with Freeman herself, especially since she and Mark Twain were America’s most beloved late-nineteenth-century writers. It didn’t really matter that I’m as much in the dark as she was when it comes to figuring out whether folks’ comments about my home-decorating talents are compliments or not.
And believe me. My home is filled with things far-more out of place than anything in Freeman’s or even the chandelier in my foyer.
If you need more proof, just walk around the corner and take a gander at my kitchen.
Who, in their wildest imagination, would expect to see an antique, cast-iron corn sheller anchoring a kitchen wall painted a rather dull gold. There it stands—bold, barn-red wood frame worn just enough to whisper stories, and a great black flywheel so theatrical it looks like it could power Mark Twain’s steamboat. Its jagged steel teeth peer out from one side like a warning or a dare. And yes, that’s a Buddha head poised gracefully on top. And a crystal vase of dried hydrangeas beside that. And behind it all, a painting of apples that, frankly, looks like it might have been pilfered from a still-life museum.
The whole wall, absurd as it may sound, radiates a kind of balance. It shouldn’t work. But neither should a chandelier in a pine-paneled foyer—yet here we are.
Even Ruby’s dog bowls sit below it like they were placed by a set designer with a sense of humor or a flair for the unexpected. And maybe they were. After all, this isn’t just décor. It’s a declaration. I live here. I made this up.
I did. I made it all up. And if these examples of how I decorate aren’t duncified enough, walk with me to the master bedroom where you’ll witness equally outlandish shenanigans.
I mean when you walk through the door you see a full wall of glass rising two stories high, flanked in clean wood trim like a frame around nature’s own oil painting, dappled with sunlight or clouds or rain or snow depending on the season. It’s modern, no question—open, architectural, and bright. The trees outside don’t just peek in—they wave, as I peek out and wave back.
Yet, in the midst of that modernity, you see a primitive wardrobe planted firmly against the Narragansett Green wall like it wandered in from a barn and decided to stay. It doesn’t whisper for attention—it claims it, with its wide plank doors, turned feet, and a latch that looks like it could keep out winter or wolves or well-meaning minimalists. It stands there like a wooden exclamation mark at the end of a free verse stanza.
And on top? Oh, mercy. You won’t believe it.
A faux flow-blue cachepot stuffed full of peacock feathers–a riot of iridescence exploding upward. Liberace himself would approve. And to its right is a clay figure with a gaze both weary and wise, like she’s been through it all and chose to dress up anyway.
This is not a design decision. This is pageantry. This is poetry. This is proof. If you’re bold enough to mix the primitive with the peacock, you might just get something startlingly close to the divine.
I could take you through the whole house—room by room—and you’d see the same thing.
A treasure here. A treasure there. (Yes. Sometimes another person’s trash became my treasure.) And for each, I can tell you when and where I bought it, along with what I paid. But here’s the thing. I never made one single solitary purchase with an eye toward resale. I never made one single solitary purchase with an eye toward decorating. I bought each and every treasure simply because I liked it. And when I brought it home, I put it wherever I had a spot on the floor or a space on the wall.
Now, don’t go jumping to the wrong conclusion. My decorating is not as haphazard as it might sound. I do have a few notions about “where things belong” and “what goes with what.” And when I visit other folks’ homes, I never hesitate to step back and declare:
“Oh. My. God. Look at that painting. I love the way it pops on that wall.”
Well, hello. Of course, it pops. With all that negative space around it, it would have to.
Let me add this, too. I love it when I see that kind of plain, simple, and powerful artistry at play–in other people’s homes.
And who knows. Perhaps, moving forward, there might even be a snowball’s chance in hell that, with some subtle, indirect and loving guidance, I could learn to value and appreciate negative space here on the mountain, too.
But for now, my goodness! I don’t have any negative space. Everywhere you look, you see a glorious mishmash. Sentiment over symmetry. Memory over minimalism.
I know. I know. It’s homey. It’s so comfortable. It’s a museum. Also, I know it’s not for everyone. But as I look around, I realize something majorly important.
I’ve decorated my house the way I’ve lived my life.
I had no blueprint. I had no Pinterest board. I didn’t consult trends. I didn’t ask for permission. I placed things where they felt right. I trusted instinct, not instruction. I listened to heart, not head.
And I’ve done the same with the living of my days.
I didn’t wait for others to validate the things that mattered to me—my work, my relationships, my choices, or my way of making a way in a world that hadn’t made a way for gay guys like me. I’ve been both the curator and the interpreter of it all. I’ve decided what stays, what goes, what gets the spotlight, and what quietly holds meaning just for me.
And maybe—just maybe—there’s something to be said for that kind of decorating. For that kind of living. One made up along the way. One that, in the end, fits and feels just right.
Who knows what kind of unruly hodgepodge I’ll have gathered by the time I reach the end. Or what I’ll do with it when I arrive—wherever it is that I’m headed—that place none of us is exactly rushing to, despite tantalizing rumors of eternal rest and better acoustics.
But this much I do know.
If I take a notion, I might just take the chandelier with me. Not for the lighting. Not for the resale value. But as glowing, glittering, slightly-too-low-hanging proof that I never followed the map—I just kept decorating the journey. With memory. With mischief. With mismatched joy. And with the quiet grace of learning to see things through someone else’s eyes—sometimes anew.
And when I show up at whatever comes next—the pearly gates, some velvet ropes, or a reincarnation waiting room—I want folks to look at that chandelier, then look at me, and say with raised eyebrows and holy disbelief:
“I’m not sure it belongs here.”
To which I’ll smile as wide as I’m smiling right now and reply,
“Well, I wasn’t about to leave it behind. Besides, I have it on good authority—it’ll grow on you.”
And that’s the truth. It’ll grow on you. I should know because I made it all up, all along my way.
“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.”
— Poor Brentford Lee (born 1947 and born again today).
Long, long ago I learned to not complain about the weather. For me, it was not a hard lesson to master. I love weather. I love how it arrives unbothered by plans, how it doesn’t ask permission to shift. Rain seeps, sun scorches, wind whispers or howls—all of it a steady reminder that the world turns whether I make a list or not. Seasons don’t hustle. They don’t perform. They simply become what they are, and in that quiet becoming, I find permission to do the same.
And so it is that I often find myself luxuriating in my bathtub–sunny days, rainy days, snowy days. Any day in any weather will do for a good old-fashioned soak. It’s especially good in a real tub like mine. Cast-iron enamel. Please tell me that no others are manufactured. Or if you tell me that they are, please have my smelling salts handy.
Let’s be clear: my bathtub is not clawfoot elegant, but it’s deep enough to pretend. When I slide in, I tell myself that I’m taking time to be. But I know the truth. I’ve turned soaking into an event that I do.
Usually, it’s not much of an event or a do. It doesn’t need to be since I don’t need much. Water. Hot. Always hot. None of this lukewarm nonsense for me. If I’m going to bother drawing a bath, I want it to steam like a sultry Shenandoah Valley morning, rolling up from the tub like fog curling along the Seven Bends of the Shenandoah.
Getting the water that I need is not as straightforward as you might think. No. It’s not. Even though I live on a mountain, I do not draw it from my well. It’s pumped from my deep well and flows through copper pipes indoors, as befits a mountain man with a porcelain tub. And, of course, mine has proper porcelainturns—white handles, chrome collars, and bold Hot and Cold lettering, like a tub straight out of a 1950s film noir. Hot, thank goodness, does bring hot. Cold brings cold. So far, so good. But to adjust the flow, I have to turn both knobs left. Why? Because my plumber, bless his well-meaning hands, apparently installed them backwards. I think. I always thought I turned the hot water knob counterclockwise to turn on the flow and clockwise to turn off the flow. The cold lever is opposite, clockwise to turn on the flow, and counterclockwise to turn it off. It is something like that. Right? Damned if I know anymore. Apparently, I’ve spent years turning one way, only to be met with the smug silence of a faucet that refuses to gush or blush. In this tub, turning is just plumb wrong.
I guess it’s a small metaphor for life, really. Just when you’re sure you’re doing it correctly—hot water flowing, intentions pure, and everything else on course—you realize the universe wants you to turn the other way.
But before I turn the other way and step into the tub–which is, I must warn you, the stage on which I will be soaking, ruminating, and possibly overdoing it for the rest of this essay—I must direct the stage lights toward something magnificent. Close your eyes for a sec. Okay. Now open, look down, and let your eyes feast upon my …
… bubble bath.
Yes. I do use bubble bath. Lord knows it’s not for the scent—though I admit, I have a weakness for sandalwood. And lavender. But let the record show: I allow lavender only in the tub. Nowhere else. A mountain man like me has standards and has to stand by them.
I tell myself that it’s not for the fragrance. It’s for the foam. Even though I reveal to you, MyDearReaders, far more than I should, I want to assure you that I do have a modicum of modesty. A bubble here, a bubble there—tastefully arranged to preserve an illusion of decency. Let’s just say the bubbles know where to gather.
Yep. That’s about all I need for one of my regular soaks. A tub. Hot water. Bubble bath.
But let’s face it. Every once in a blue moon, a mountain man needs a little spice. I’m no exception, even though I confess to being more than a little exceptional.
It’s on those blue-moon occasions that I line up a full production. Then, believe you me. I don’t just take a bath. I stage a bath.
I arrange things just so on my Broadway altar: mug of chamomile tea (because sometimes wine in a stemmed and fluted Baccarat feels like too much doing), one candle (the fancy one that I don’t even own, but begrudgingly burn anyway), and three colognes that I don’t own yet, each vying for my American Express card that I do own. Imagine. Three bottles lined up like contestants on The Bachelor: Mountain-Man Bathroom Edition. It’s far more than cologne drama. It’s downright Shakespearean. It’s The Mountain meets The Globe.
It opens with a cologne smackdown.
Baie 19: (sniffily) “Let’s not pretend I’m not the one Poor Brentford truly wants. I’m rainfall and memory. I’m the whisper of longing on damp skin. I’m practically poetry in a bottle.”
Oud Wood: (with velvet growl) “Poetry’s lovely, dear, but I’m seduction that lingers. I’m cashmere confidence. I’m what Tennessee Gary leans in to smell twice.”
Patchouli Absolu:(swaggering) “Children, please. I’m the heartbeat of the forest and the soul of a vinyl jazz LP. I’m Poor Brentford in full earthy glory. He doesn’t wear me, he becomes me.”
Baie 19: “You smell like a commune.”
Oud Wood:“You smell like wet pebbles.”
Patchouli Absolu: “And you both smell like insecurity.”
ME (overwhelmed on one of my rare occasions when I know how it feels to feel overwhelmed, which is not overwhelmingly often): “You’re all exhausting. No one’s coming over. I’m about to confess my sins to the lefty-tighty, righty loosey faucet and cry into the loofah that I neither have nor want.”
They fall silent. I choose. None. Scentless, I splash around in the tub like a mountain man who moonlights in musicals.
Then what do I do? I lean back, all the way back, and I start confessing. The bubbles gather ’round in all the right places like gossiping parishioners. The faucet stares. Ruby settles nearby with the look of a creature who’s seen this show before, seen it all before, all too often.
I speak.
“Forgive me, tub, for I have over-functioned.”
Drip.
“I said I was going to be. Just be. Instead, look at what I’ve done. I’ve curated a still-life. I folded the towel just so. I fluffed my own ego like it was company. I …”
Drip. Drip.
“… I checked my smartphone. Three times. I told myself I wouldn’t, but what if he texted? What if he sensed my aching soul? Oh, do not ask me, “Who?” You tease. Please be still. Surely, you know exactly who. Surely, you do. You do, don’t you?”
Ruby raises one eye and promptly closes it again. Even she doesn’t buy my shameless shenanigans.
“And yes,” I whisper, “I lit the special candle that I don’t have. The one I said I was saving. For what? For when? Who knows. I guess I was saving it for this moment of low-grade thirst.”
Replies? None. Not one. No, not one single solitary reply. I suspect judgment. Is that what exfoliating looks like? Is that how it feels? Judgment?
I confess one more thing. Doing this being thingy that I’m supposed to be doing ain’t easy. But what’s a mountain man to do when he be soakin’ in a tub?
The very question made some of the less bashful bubbles pop, just as I brought on stage everything that I’ll need to play out my after-the-rain weather act—the one I fully plan on doing.
I’ll harness my weedwhacker around me like medieval armor and march into the yard. Oh. Don’t get alarmed. I’ll don all my clothes so that the scorching sun will not be led into temptation. No doubt the overgrowth in the lower yard and along the rutted road will wave at me and thrash about, like green adversaries, defiant and smug.
And I, in true Don Quixote theatrics at their finest, will tilt my weedwhacker and tackle it all, tackle it all already, as I have tackled it all already so often already in the past.
And I will be noble.
And I will be productive.
And I will be heroic.
And I will let the rains come and the winds blow. Ruby, smarter than I, will bolt for shelter. But I will stay. Drenched. Steaming. And—without even trying—I will finally be. Just… be.
Wet. Ridiculous. Peaceful. Winded. My trusty weedwhacker by my side. But I will have achieved being.
That is the theme, isn’t it, of whatever it is that I’ve got goin’ on in this here tub? Right? The daily tug-of-war between doing and being.
I want to be at peace, but now I’ve done gone and plotted out all the steps and ruined it.
I want to be still, but now I’ve done gone and ended up writing about the stillness.
I want to be the mountain man who soaks in sandalwood and lavender in a porcelain tub with porcelain faucets that can’t figure out which way to turn.
But I also want to be the mountain man who hosts, cooks, flirts, loves, writes books, directs theatrical Broadway tub shows, and maybe gets a text from someone–in Tennessee?–who says, “You smell good—even when you don’t wear cologne, especially when you don’t wear cologne.”
And here, mydearReaders, is the moment when the lights begin to dim ever so faintly, the audience leans in more spellbound than before, and Poor Brentford steps on stage–front and center, fully wrapped in his towel (or is he fully wrapt?)–for his soliloquy that he never dreamt of speaking, let alone rehearsing:
“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.
“I made peace with three colognes I dreamt about, one candle that I don’t own but burn at both ends anyway, a tub with faulty faucets, and me– myself, just as I am.
“I let the bubbles baptize my busy mind.
“And when I stepped out—wrinkled, radiant, ridiculoos—I realized:
“‘I be fabulous.’
“I also realized: ‘You be fabulous, too.’
“So. Listen up. Go now. Take a soak, with or without bubble bath.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver (1935–2019; American poet celebrated for her keen observations of nature, the human spirit, and the connection between the two. Oliver’s poetry encourages readers to engage deeply with the world around them and to embrace life’s moments with curiosity and intention.)
Crunchy fried chicken, its golden-brown crust crackling with every bite. Check. Pimento cheese potato salad, creamy and tangy, with just enough bite to earn nods of approval. Check. Green beans simmered long and slow, tender and rich with the deep, smoky whisper of a ham hock. Check. Sliced tomatoes, their sun-ripened juices glistening under a light sprinkle of salt. Check. Peach pie cooling on the counter, its buttery crust cradling syrupy, sun-warmed fruit, promising the perfect sweet finish. Check.
Dinner was falling into shape, as country as country could be—homey, solid, the kind of meal that settles deep and satisfies. Except I hadn’t made my sourdough biscuits. And it’s those damned biscuits that caused the problem.
Easy peasy. Sourdough discard. Flour. Butter. Milk. Salt. It’s hard to imagine that such a modest assemblage could rise up to become so flaky and tender, hundreds of layers as light and lofty as billowy clouds. But that always happens, in record time.
Get this. I had all the ingredients lined up, waiting for the gentle touch of my deft hands to spring into action. But with my measure mid-air, I stopped in a heated exchange of self-talk:
“I don’t want to bother.”
“Come on. They only take ten minutes.”
“But everything else is done. Why mess up the kitchen now?”
“Biscuits. You always make biscuits.”
“Not tonight.”
“Come on. Just mix the dough.”
“No.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“No. I won’t.”
I set the measuring cup down, exhaled hard, walked away, and floured one up to “I don’t want to bother.”
I’d like to think that ended my self-talk on that topic. It did, for a while. After all, with a meal that was a culinary triumph by anyone’s standards, who needs biscuits?
But here’s the thing. The next day, those biscuits got on my case. In reality, it wasn’t the biscuits. It couldn’t have been since I didn’t make them. It was the underlying reason for not making them that started eating away at me:
“I don’t want to bother.”
I mean, let’s face it. I could have said any number of things:
“I don’t want to.”
“I’m tired. I need a break.”
“With a spread like that, who needs biscuits?”
I didn’t say any of those things because they just weren’t true. My truth was what I had told myself:
“I don’t want to bother.”
Bother. That’s the word that stuck in my craw. Bother—a term that’s been around since at least 1842, when someone first wrote, “We can’t do it at all, we can’t be bothered.” And here I was, almost two centuries later, falling into the same trap.
Realistically, one single utterance should be no cause for alarm. Right? I’m not so certain.
What if it moved from biscuits to other areas of my life?
What about brushing Ruby, my best dog ever? It would be easier to let it slide.
What about publishing my blog posts, week after week after week? It would be a lot easier to skip a week here, there, forever.
What about pushing through with my daily biking routine? It would be a lot easier to bike fewer miles every day or to skip a day now and then.
What about finishing a major research project? It would be a lot easier to put it aside.
Luckily, I haven’t allowed “I don’t want to bother” to prevail. And look at the results.
I have a well-groomed faithful companion, Ruby. I have a blog with a track record for being published every Monday morning before seven just as regularly as clockwork. I bike 15-20 miles every day, seven days a week, knowing that it never gets easier. I just solved one of America’s greatest literary mysteries–Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina. The Humourist’s incisive voice will now be heard once more.
I hope, especially as I age, that I will never let “I don’t want to bother” prevail. Here’s why.
It seems to me that the more we avoid doing things, the smaller our world becomes. What starts as skipping small inconveniences—like making biscuits or brushing the dog—can gradually turn into avoiding new experiences, opportunities, and relationships. The mindset can shift from “I don’t want to bother” to the even more passive “I can’t be bothered.”
It seems to me that the best experiences in life often require an extra push—whether in personal growth, relationships, or creativity. Habitual avoidance means fewer “What if?” moments that lead to breakthroughs or unexpected joys. Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut, not because we lack talent, intelligence, or resources, but simply because we repeatedly choose the path of least resistance.
It seems to me that friendships and family connections need tending. If “I don’t want to bother” becomes the default, relationships slowly fade through neglect. This can lead to isolation, where we wake up one day and realize we haven’t had a meaningful conversation in weeks or months.
It seems to me that small decisions accumulate. If we regularly skip writing, gardening, dating, or learning new things, we might later look back and wonder, “What did I do with all that time?”
It seems to me that the difference between people who feel satisfied with life and those who feel unfulfilled often comes down to these small moments of effort—choosing to bother when it counts.
Believe me. The next time I serve up a meal like that—or any meal, for that matter—I won’t hesitate. I’ll bother.
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900; Irish playwright, poet, and author known for his wit, flamboyant style, and sharp social criticism as well as for his role in the aesthetic movement, which emphasized beauty and art for art’s sake.)
Sometimes, I wonder when a routine in our lives becomes a ritual. They are different, of course. Routines are often performed out of necessity or habit. Rituals carry a sense of purpose, mindfulness, or emotional significance. I suppose a routine can turn into a ritual when its meaning grows beyond its original purpose—when the participants become more conscious of the act itself, savoring it, reflecting on its importance, or incorporating personal values into it.
I’m thinking, for example, of an afternoon drive that my late partner and I used to take daily down a nearby country road meandering along the banks of the Shenandoah River. It started as little more than a way to while away the time between Allen’s arrival home from his 7a.m. to 3p.m. shift at our local hospital until the start of our 5 o’clock cocktail hour and dinner prep.
We always took my Jeep. Allen didn’t like its bumpy ride, but since I was willing to drive, he put up with it. It didn’t take long before we both realized the routine had shifted from its original intent. It became a time when Allen could share the highlights of his day as a surgical technologist, and I could share highlights of mine as an English professor. Then, we savored being with one another, moving along, cocooned in quiet.
Now, heading out for that same drive feels different. I’m alone, but the road is still filled with echoes of those drives with Allen. The gravel crunches beneath the tires, a reminder that I’m traveling at a slower pace—though I still catch myself thinking in we. As I drive down our rutted road, the bumps and jolts are as familiar as ever, almost comforting, as if the past rides along with me into the present. I’m never in too much of a hurry. After all, I know that venturing down means that I’ll have to come back up eventually.
Fall has arrived. The goldenrod along the roadside catches my eye because it often made its way back home into floral arrangements. The landscape changes as I transition from the gravel onto the hard surface of the county road. It meanders along steep banks, the guardrails dented woefully from cars that couldn’t quite manage the turns. The sound of the tires shifts too, now whirring on the pavement as the engine hums along at a modest speed—never more than thirty-five, even though the road stretches out ahead.
Leaving behind the George Washington National Forest, I see the Shenandoah Valley open up into a vast, sweeping view of mountains—beyond them, West Virginia. Mailboxes line the road, clinging to its edge like sentinels. The curves of the road feel like a roller coaster, and I slow down as I near the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. It’s instinct now, my pause to check the depth of the water below, watching as it glides under the bridge.
I pass through Edinburg, a town where unoccupied buildings look as cared for as the rest. I find myself wondering what brought people here in the first place and what keeps them here now. Stony Creek runs by Edinburg Mill, built a decade or so before the Civil War. Just beyond is the cemetery, always a reminder, as if I ever needed one, that a little ways further is where we always used to turn left onto Palmyra Church Road.
I turn there today. This stretch is all too familiar. It’s paved but without markings to show the center of the road, the travel lanes, or the road’s edges. Massanutten Mountain looms straight ahead. I slow down even slower, savoring the ride, stretching out the trip as long as I can. I realize that I have no compelling destination. This trip is about the road itself, the memories, the connection to this place, and the quiet reflection it brings.
The speed limit drops to 25, and the road stretches out ahead. For now, it’s just me and the country road. There’s nothing behind me that I can see and nothing ahead of me but that same winding road.
Soon, I approach a grassy field stretching along the banks of the Shenandoah River. The grass, tall and dry, ready to bow down for a twin-engine plane’s landing. Small cones dot the nearly invisible runway, glowing at night like distant stars, guiding the landing, and then leading to a small, weathered hangar. In times past, we would sometimes glimpse a small plane resting at the far end of the field, its presence quiet and still. We never saw the pilot, if one ever existed. These days, the plane is gone, as if it never was. The field lies empty, waiting.
A little further along, I do a double take to my left as I see Palmyra Church of the Brethren. I’m not sure that Allen and I ever saw it on any of our drives. If we did, neither of us commented. I’m not surprised. It’s a modest church with white wooden siding, a metal roof, and a small steeple that adds a traditional touch. A brick chimney on one side adds to the rural charm. The front entrance is simple, with a door accessed by steps and a metal railing, alongside a wooden ramp. No one is there. The absence of people turns quiet into stark, making the church feel even more secluded if not abandoned.
I pause and cannot help but wonder why a road meandering along the mighty Shenandoah River would bear the name of a church so plain and inconspicuous that it’s easily unseen. Yet, even as I wonder, I know. For the dwindled few, it’s still a house of worship. And then I pause again. Seeing no cemetery. I wonder: where do they bury their dead?
I leave those wonderings behind me as I start looking ahead, hoping to see the small, thin woman that Allen and I used to see as she walked the road, her steps so soft they seemed to barely touch the ground. She was always beneath a large, open black umbrella, shielding her, sometimes from sun or rain or snow, but more often than not, from nothing more than open sky and passersby. Her pace seemed slower than the passage of time itself, as if she were floating rather than walking. Her face leaned down toward a cell phone held delicately in one hand, her eyes locked on its screen. She appeared ethereal, her presence more like a drifting shadow, but there was an undeniable humanity about her—fragile and real.
Allen and I worried about her. We broke our quiet to talk about her. Where was she going? Where had she been? Where was her home? How far away from home was she? Who was waiting there for her return? She seemed so other-worldly that I started calling her The Ghost of Palmyra Church Road. We always wondered whether we would see her on our next drive. We always did, every time, though in a different spot every time, always somewhere further back or somewhere further ahead. Over time, we warmed to her, and we waved softly. It took her longer, but the time came when she warmed back, shyly and slowly, as if to freeze time itself with the lift of her mittened hand.
Something about her presence always felt timeless. Today, she’s not here.
The rumble of tires against the pavement breaks the quiet as I approach a small bridge to my right, spanning this narrow section of the Shenandoah River, connecting to Old Valley Pike. Sometimes, if we were pressed for time, Allen and I would turn here and head back home.
Usually, though, we weren’t in a hurry, and we’d continue down the road where, from this point, it became Red Bank Road. Expansive farmlands open to my right, framed by wooden fences holding on to the Civil War. These fields, too, are dry and dusty.
To my right, I catch glimpses of the Shenandoah River through the sycamore. Rounding the last turn, I’m aware that the speed limit rises to 45 as I approach Mount Jackson. I could easily turn around and retrace the drive as Allen and I used to do as part of our ritual. But I don’t. I know that The Ghost of Palmyra Church Road is no more likely to appear than the plane that’s disappeared from the field. They coexist with the church that has no people and no cemetery–echoes in my memory.
As the landscape shifts and as the signs of the times creep back in, the quiet truth shatters my silence.
This time, I’m driving alone, my right hand resting on the Jeep’s console, no longer holding Allen’s hand in mine.
“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022; a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist known for his teachings on mindfulness and compassion.)
It all started a week or so ago. I remember with great clarity that it was on a Monday. I woke up feeling a weight around my neck, something I hadn’t noticed before. It was subtle but persistent, almost like wearing a heavy choker. At first, I tried to dismiss it, thinking it was just a minor inconvenience. But as the hours passed, the weight grew more noticeable. I felt uneasy, as if something was slightly off, casting a shadow over my thoughts.
The next day, the weight was unmistakable. It was heavier than I expected, plus it seemed to be tightening. Simple tasks became more cumbersome, and I became acutely aware of something that I could not escape. The burden started to affect my mood, causing frustration to build.
By the third day, the albatross felt like an anchor dragging me down. I was tired and irritable, and my patience was wearing thin. It seemed to point me toward a deeper problem or unresolved issue that I knew I shouldn’t ignore. Despair started to set in as I tried to identify the problem and figure out how to escape the torment.
Finally, on the fourth day, while relaxing on my deck in the early sunrise, the albatross looked at me, and in that fleeting glance, I saw the source of the nearly unbearable weight. Brace yourself. You might not believe what I’m about to reveal. Here goes. The weight was coming from the blog post that I was working on for the next Monday.
The realization stunned me. Actually, it mortified me. Here’s why. I knew exactly where I was going with the post, and I had drafted more than half of it. But get this. I didn’t like the opening paragraphs. I hadn’t liked them from the start, I kept telling myself day after day that those paragraphs would fall into place as I got closer to the post’s ending.
I was wrong. They didn’t fall into place, and I wasn’t willing to let that albatross hang around my neck any longer. I found myself saying out loud to myself as I sat there, sipping coffee:
“Give it up, Kendrick. Just give it up.”
I didn’t mean that I should delete the draft. I just meant that I should put it on the back burner until its time had come. As soon as I gave it up, the albatross that had become unbearable let go of me and flew away. I felt an immediate sense of lightness and relief. The burden that once felt insurmountable was gone, and I was overwhelmed by a wave of elation. I felt a profound sense of freedom. The contrast between the heaviness of the past few days and the newfound lightness made the relief even more exhilarating. I was finally free.
With the albatross gone, my mind was free to soar, and a brand-new idea for a post came to me immediately, filling me with renewed energy. As I continued sipping my coffee, I cobbled together a really rough draft of what I wanted the new post to become. All day long, I kept the post on my mental backburner. That night, in bed with my Smartphone in hand, I completed the post rather effortlessly and published it the following Monday: “When the Heat Is On, Cue the Vacay!“
Letting go of the writer’s albatross that had been weighing me down for days allowed me to cue my own metaphorical vacay. Now, here I am sharing my specific challenge and my specific solution, hoping that it will speak to other writers out there. Sometimes, you simply have to let go of an idea that has possessed you if it becomes a deadly weight instead of wings that give flight. Letting go does not mean abandoning. It means putting the idea aside until it calls you back and begs you to give it the attention that you need to give it. The two of you–your idea and you as the writer–are the only ones who will know when the time is right.
In the end, letting go of the albatross allowed me to discover some new creative wings. By acknowledging the weight and releasing my grip, I freed myself to explore new ideas and approaches.
If you’re a writer, hold on to the truth that I have shared. Sometimes, the best way to make progress is to let go and cue your own vacay–embracing the freedom to create and enjoy the journey.
If you’re not a writer, reflect on this nugget of truth as well. It might help you, too. Just as a writer’s stubbornness can turn a blog post into an albatross, so too can our refusal to release emotional baggage turn relationships into anchors, holding us back from sailing into calmer waters. Or our insistence on controlling every detail turns projects into burdensome backpacks, weighing us down on the journey to success. And what about those stubborn habits we cling to, even when they no longer serve us? Don’t they become the equivalent of a ball and chain, hindering our progress toward a healthier, happier life? In each case, the albatross effect whispers a haunting question: What weight am I shouldering that’s keeping me from soaring? Sometimes, letting go of our personal albatrosses is the only way to find freedom.
Sometimes, we need to let go, not necessarily abandoning our responsibilities or aspirations, but releasing the grip of our ego, our fears, or our need for control. By doing so, we create space for new ideas, new experiences, and new growth to emerge. May we all find the courage to release our albatrosses and let them fly away so that we might discover the liberating power of letting go.
The Wired Researcher 