I’ve logged more experience than most with simplicity and the complexity you discover inside simplicity, minimalism and asocial behavior, endurance and landscape.
Here is the truth: I think some deep wisdom inside me (a) sensed the stress, (b) was terrified for me, and (c) gave me something new and hard to focus on in order to prevent me from lapsing into a despair coma — and also to keep me from having a jelly jar of wine in my hand.
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My brother is decorating a kitchen wall in his small apartment with a photo of the kids he doesn’t get to see, three boys sitting in a row, smiling, a fake sunset glowing behind them. His GED certificate. Quotes like “Something alive remains. And what is kept, well kept inside, needs only this silence to complete it.” The Twelve Steps typed out to remind him every day that he’s back on the first rung. An AA chip for that one year of sobriety that ended when he walked into a bar five weeks ago, sorrows hanging on him like old friends — a one-month binge and no memory of it. So now he’s back on what he calls the slow boat to sobriety. He rides a wobbly bike to meetings and still hears from Snake and J.D. at the Finish Line, who call him after downing a couple of shots, saying, Hey, asshole, come back home. With tape and paper he is rebuilding his life once more, pressing each taped word to the wall, desperately trying to keep every letter straight, determined, this time, to make them stick.
Jeff Walt