Stuff and Simplicity

It’s one day before Lindsay’s and Scott’s Engagement party. Gifts have started to arrive already. Big boxes, middle sized boxes, smaller boxes. My house has become the “Warehouse for the Stuff of the Future Mr. and Mrs. Kalmus”. There is so much “stuff” you need when you get married. It begins when the future bride and groom go to the stores and pick out the stuff for their registry and then put it online because the internet has become the “go-to place” for just about everything. Bed, Bath and Beyond is the most popular store for all this stuff; “beyond” being the endless possibilities of gadgets, gizmos and literally anything and everything that will completely domesticate the happy couple.

What would our life be like without all these boxes of stuff? I was watching Coco, my dog, the other day lying on my bed, nuzzled next to my leg. I heard her take in a deep gulp of air and let it out in one of her long snorty sighs. I said to Mark, “She’s so easily content.” Mark responded, “That’s because she doesn’t know any better.” “Maybe that’s the key to life,” I chuckled. The truth is Coco can be happy with just a bed, no bath, and certainly no beyond. Simply simple simplistic simplicity. Relationships can be simple too. He loves her; she loves him; just being in each other’s presence makes them both blissful. It’s the stuff that makes things so utterly complicated- brands, brand names, colors, textures, designs, styles- beyond, beyond, beyond. This leads to decision making and choices and then reconsidering the choices and before you know it you can’t even fall asleep at night on the bed that you chose the 100 percent Egyptian cotton sheets for because Bed Bath and Beyond ran out of stock on the matching throw-pillows to the comforter you picked out and it changes the whole design scheme you envisioned. Oy.

Let’s go back to the simple relationship of Lindsay and Scott. He loves her; she loves him. Just simply sharing chicken nachos and salad makes them content. I know this because I saw it happen last night when I invited myself out to dinner with them at their favorite alehouse. “We’re sharing our chicken nachos tonight,” Lindsay told me with a big grin. (They “share” to stick to their strict budgets that Scott created on an excel spreadsheet so they can save to buy a house to put all their stuff into.) They barely even looked at the menu when we got there and believe me, there was plenty of time to look at the menu because there was over an hour wait for a table. But they didn’t care. I watched them as they ate their huge plate of chicken nachos, which would have fed all of us. True love is sharing a plate of chicken nachos and in its simplicity, looking profoundly happy.