essay

Let Go of Your Legal Pad

And as I straightened to a full stand and saw the orange and yellow lilies and happy zinnias and Tessie’s bright shoes and a swing set and a little red plastic chair on the deck outside—all in just the right light, that bold rounded yellow kind of light like the good people of Cadiz so often enjoy, it hit me in a rush of physical sensation: I have everything I need. I don’t need anything else, ever.

No more personal tracking devices like omniscient Blackberrys, no heartshaped Teflon waffle makers with heat resistant knobs and automatic cut-off valves, no bamboo steamers or apple corers or electric bread warmers, no atomic projection clocks that coax me awake in dulcet tones, no telescoping Italian barstools, no stacking washers and dryers that look like pieces of art, no power suits with pizza slice pointy shoes, no personal portable monogrammed list carriers, no new car (though, to be honest, if someone would enjoy the pleasure of giving me a car since mine died a sad and smoky death, that nice little VW Beetle convertible is a sweet choice in light teal), no little yellow raincoat for the dog, no napkin rings in the shape of small garden sprites, no more making lists of things I need—I’m done, I’m happy, I’m eschewing materialism once and for all.


Okay, I’m sure there will be momentary lapses. That cute iPhone looks interesting and Tracy Chapman has a new CD out and I’d like to support that nice man downtown named Paul who makes honest-to-God handmade sandals, but you get the point. Don’t you?

When I saw those little girl shoes in the green grass, one sock nearby and the other one gone to Sock Heaven, the spark of color in those zinnias, and the blue, blue sky, what I felt was a sense of satisfaction, even in a tough toddler-scream-athon syrup-on-the-fl oor kind of day. It was enough. I’ve simply never felt so full, satiated, complete, engaged.

For several summers, I traveled from my home in Washington, D.C., to make art at the Penland School of Crafts, a center for craft education in the mountains of North Carolina. It is a magical place where artists meet and make art and compare notes; people blow glass and make hand-printed books there. They create clay bowls and daguerreotypes and whole tables and chairs of the most sumptuous wood you’ve ever seen.

For me, the grounding force of those art weeks was always a simple white “dorm” room with nothing in it except a twin bed, a small bedside table with a lamp, a tiny white desk with a wooden chair, and a wall hook. Everything was white and there was nothing else in the room. It was like a white heaven, a sudden burst of clarity; I’m now firmly convinced that those visions of light people tell about in their near death experiences are simply rooms without clutter, not the Promised Land.

My whole mind was freed up in that small white room, quiet except for June bugs buzzing their happy bug buzz outside. There was nothing to distract me from myself: “Oh, look! I haven’t seen that high school yearbook in years!” “Wow! My thesis from graduate school—let me take a quick look!” “I’d better wash the dishes before House comes on!” No, here it was just me and my sketchbook.

I always took with me a small, old quilt that I had used as a child, with faded fabric roads and intersections that had served my Matchbox cars well. I would sit bolt upright at that tiny desk and write until the blessed horizontal called me home. Then, under that childhood quilt, I would think the kinds of thoughts that are unabsorbed by things, just free-floating in a quietly simple room, white and barren and gorgeous beyond words.

In the work I’m doing—work in which we invite people to move around and play—the biggest barrier to people participating fully is not their mental inhibitions, as you might think. Rather, it is all their stuff: they would move, but do they take their briefcase with them, and their small plate on which a sticky bun is poised, and what about their legal pad and the pen that Aunt Harriet gave them? Should they move that, too? And their newspaper? And that copy of Blink they carry around so they’ll look hip? Should they cart it all around with them, from seat to seat, will they be coming back to their home base, will someone steal it? These are questions we could ask about life in general, aren’t they? 

It is Stuff that keeps us from participating fully, our mobility and sense of fun and playfulness and ability to be directly engaged muted by our concern for objects, our holding onto. We cherish our objects and we are hampered by them as well, unable to move freely around in the world and engage directly for fear of leaving or losing our coffee cup and 8.5”x 11” faux leather legal pad holder with our initials stamped in the lower right corner in faux gold. No, we say, we’ll just sit right here with our things. Objects distance us from ourselves, from others, from life.

When I look back at powerful times in my life, there is one point of connection: simplicity, freedom from objects, direct engagement. That small village in Sri Lanka. That sweet white space at Penland. A simple dorm room in Oregon where I teach each summer. A beautifully bare beach cottage in Manzanita. An old pop-up Nimrod camper. I must get back to my white room.

37 Days: Do it Now Challenge

­Take everything out of it and sit quietly in a small wooden chair. Simplify. Your brain waves won’t have as much distraction to bump against. Bring no new objects into your home for one month. And go ahead, free yourself up from moving all that stuff around. Let go of your legal pad. Okay, I’m sure there will be momentary lapses. That cute iPhone looks interesting and Tracy Chapman has a new CD out and I’d like to support that nice man downtown named Paul who makes honest-to-God handmade sandals, but you get the point. Don’t you?

Patti Digh’s third book, Life Is a Verb, is forthcoming in September 2008 from skirt! books and is based on her award-winning blog, 37days. Patti can be reached at patti@thecircleproject.com or 37days.com.

~Patti Digh