But what to add? And what to strip away? These are the themes of all our conversations lately.
“That could have waited till later,” says my spouse Janyce from the driver’s seat, car idling in the driveway, watching me hang the hummingbird feeder filled with fresh sugar water.
“No it couldn’t,” I say. “This is the time when they come to eat.”
It’s Saturday morning and I climb into the jeep, bouncing around in the seat as Janyce maneuvers through our residential neighborhood. It’s a beautiful day already, sun out, raindrops glistening on the tips of the long grasses from the showers the night before. Janyce whips past the green lawns with the bulbous magenta rhododendron blooms, and pulls into the empty Starbucks drive-through right before the off ramp to the highway.
“Wait. Back up. It’s not hot,” I say, taking a sip of my coffee just as we’re leaving. I hold out my coffee cup with a straight arm towards the windshield.
“I can’t back up, someone is behind me,” she says, now swerving sharply into a parking space at the front of the building.
We’re trying to get into the city for dual early morning hair appointments and we’re rushing. We’ve got plenty of time. I say to myself. Janyce shoots me a glance as she gets out of the car holding my lukewarm coffee cup.
After twelve years together we’ve got the script down. I’m pointing out all the things that are wrong this morning and adding one more thing to our to- do list and she is fixing all the things that are wrong and trying to keep us on schedule.
I watch her stride through the glass double doors and I grab my phone to bring up the Tinywins text chat from the day before. One of my college girlfriends has transformed her deep brown hair to a platinum blond. I reread the text conversation and scroll past her latest picture on Instagram. She has a look of defiance on her face, her ice blond hair swept back off her forehead, with oversized black eyewear and a cocky little head tilt. Her hashtags say #finallydidit and #outofmycomfortzone.
The other day I sent another one of my college girlfriends an email with an excerpt from a magazine article. “I thought you could relate to this this,” I typed into the subject line. The article was all about a 58-yr-old woman joining the Peace Corps with her retired husband. I remember us talking about this dream of hers way back in the day, during a break in our art school color class. You’re right, she typed back. I can relate to this.
Leidy Klotz’s book Subtract is a 250-page work of scholarship, convincingly argued, with entertaining stories about his two-year-old son and other anecdotes that help him to make his point, which is pretty much this: You should seriously try subtracting at the same time that you are adding. It’s the “less is more,” “keep it only if it sparks joy” approach to making changes, pretty much.
Except there is one thing that I’m still thinking about days after I turned the last page. He says to “consider the multitudes” when you’re trying to envision the next thing. The multitudes are all those other people that you are. Remember them? The ones who might look at the situation you find yourself in with fresh eyes and see something you might not have considered.
Janyce returns back to the car with my hot coffee and we’re off again.
But what to add? And what to strip away? These are the themes of all our conversations lately. It’s easy for me to look to Janyce and my girlfriends for all my affirmations and support, but have I truly considered the multitudes lately? I ask the writer often what she wants to make happen. What about the girl fresh out of art school? The out and proud divorcee, the cancer survivor, the empty nester? What do they have to say about the next life change?
“I’m proud of you,” says Janyce, sliding one of her egg bites out of the paper sleeve and taking a bite as she drives.
“What for?” I say.
“I see you making all these choices lately and staying on schedule with your eating plan. I know it’s not easy,” she says.
“Feel free to tell me that every day,” I say. “Self care cheerleader isn’t one of my multitudes.”
“You got it,” she says.