Clarity Inside the Box

A friend of mine once said, in a moment of frustration, “I just want to be homeless. I want to walk away from everything and live on the street.” Then he added, “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Sometimes I wonder if anyone can pursue money and material rewards and remain sane. I mean, of course, we all need food, shelter and a few other things to survive, yet, what is life when we give over to the mere pursuit of a lifestyle? This question has been on my mind for a long time, but it feels that it sits at the forefront of my thoughts as an almost constant companion these days. What is need? And how does it differ from want?

Today, in particular, I was feeling exactly as my friend confessed to feeling when he wanted to live in a box. I wanted to walk away from all the things I own, which require housing and money to pay for them to be kept, and instead, I wanted to simplify.

I felt this so strongly, perhaps because it is the Christmas season and shopping has brought on crowded streets, busy stores and a frantic rush that changes people from individuals to a mob. Among them, I sense a level of impatience, distress and lack of care. This isn’t my normal experience, walking into public space or a place of business, in the city that I now live. Yet, this is common enough throughout December.

Last night, I attended a high school band concert with my husband, and we listened to our daughters perform with their fellow music students. Unexpectedly, there was barely a misplaced woodwind squeak or fwamp from the brass. Rather, we enjoyed very beautiful music played well, all by young people passionately engaged in their performance. During the evening, various students emceed for the concert. They announced the compositions they were playing. They told jokes, thanked their three band teachers, and shared a story about what music means to them.  Music, they said, is stress relief, emotion, a place to belong, a home. So, I have been thinking about this, and feeling today that home is not a place. It is not a building, or a thing that we own. Home is an idea. And yet, even as an idea, how we confuse home for a house, a place, a thing, something we own.

As I’ve been working in my home office, doing a job that requires me to be focused on the marketing strategies and the words of business people telling their stories to promote their products and services, I felt the tedium of long work hours, the pressure of deadlines, and the disconnect that comes with a stack of work and isolation.

I’ve wondered why would I need these things, and is it necessary to make more things that would tell me why I need them? And, where am I going to keep all these papers now piling up in the corner of my room? Will I need to buy more things to store them?

It was an amazingly free thing to escape my computer and my desk and go out for a night. It was amazingly free to be faced with doing only one thing: to simply enjoy the young people, their joy and their music. Some how, I felt very much at home with this, at home in the moment.

Back at work today, I found myself casting glances around me, wondering how I could downsize my belongings, pare back and simplify. In essence, how can I make my life back into something balanced, something simple, and restore a sense of home to my everyday being?

It’s not crazy to want the freedom to live fully, without the imprisoning encumbrances of things. It’s not crazy; it’s clarity. An ironic kind of clarity, that conceiving to live in a box is thinking outside of one.