Crisis can simplify daily life
From inside our rented Tahoe condo, the snow drifts against the sliding glass door looked as if a gusty, bitter blob of precipitation had come to its final resting place on our balcony, blotting out every inch of sky. The cable television was out. Most of the ski lifts were closed. An avalanche had shut part of Highway 89, so no one was going anywhere.
It was heaven.
We slowed down. Played games. Had a second cup of coffee. Talked. Read. Listened to nothing more exciting than the murmur of the central heating system. We walked to a friend’s condo and played more games. Made dinner together. Began another round of Trivial Pursuit. Poured more wine.
The next day, at the very hour cable service was restored, my teenage son answered my invitation to a game of Othello with those four familiar words: “Law & Order’s on.’ My husband left for a business trip. I checked e-mail. My friends called to say they were heading home to beat the traffic and get their kids to finish their high school application essays.
So I begin the new year by offering this overdue conclusion: Because it took the forces of nature to deliver unto us one single day of the simpler, quieter life we have long been seeking — the life we resolve year after year to create — then the advice we have been following is clearly not working. It’s time to forget Phil and Oprah, to scrap the aromatherapy and soothing rainwater CDs.
The new course to calm is crisis.
There are two rules in a crisis: First things first, and one thing at a time.
“That’s what the simple life means,’ family therapist Joan Whittington said. “Do what’s in front of you. Enjoy the sensation of accomplishment. Then rest. In our lives, there is no room for rest, no provision made for the need to enjoy and connect.”
During the blizzard, eight of us had trudged through the biting wind and snow to a nearby restaurant to be together for a lunch we could have cooked on our own. At the door of the cafe, as snowy boots stamped the welcome mat, strangers asked, “Get your car out?’ and “Your power on?’ and “Just ordering another round, sit down.’ Long after lunch, none of us made a move to leave.
UC-Berkeley graduate school dean Mary Ann Mason, an author of numerous books on families and children, laughed in recognition when I told her my Tahoe experience.
“Unfortunately, you do have to remove yourself from everyday life (to find a simpler one),’ Mason said, acknowledging that blinks, beeps and blares, the touchtone tyranny of instant communication, are here to stay. “Removing yourself is not going to happen on its own. And you can’t keep counting on acts of God.’
In urban and suburban lives, she said, people have to “institutionalize’ quiet time. Simply being at home used to ensure some semblance of silent downtime, but not with e-mail and cell phones and pagers transporting work into the living room, and not with television news shows delivering a relentless barrage of fear, from terrorism to joblessness to mad cow disease.
More than ever, a truly simple life seems to mean, ironically, that we have to leave our homes, even if just to the library or the park down the street. More ironic, it seems to mean we have to stop living in fear — especially of falling behind — and start living in crisis.
First things first. One thing at a time.
Here’s to figuring out how to create your own personal blackouts and blizzards. May they be frequent, and may you never run out of poker chips.
(Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Her e-mail is [email protected].)