Home Rule

The laws of society, made by such a complicated process, are ones that we seldom set about trying to change.  We follow some laws and break others. We pay our taxes and do not steal or litter, but we speed now and then, smoke a little pot in the wrong place, as decreed by state law, and sometimes stray onto private land.  These are small departures from the law which, not taken to excess, hurt no one including ourselves.

The bigger consideration for me is the rules I set for myself.  I often over-complicate my life by the intricacies of these rules.  Whether they are set up  because of the expectations of others or myself is something I’ve been examining at great length lately.  Why, when I entertain, is it so important to me to create a complicated meal worthy of company?  Why must I fuss over the table setting, the music, getting the house just right?  I know in the back of my mind that such things do not matter as much to those invited as they do to me, and yet I feel driven to stage the occasion, to create a memorable event–a happening of sorts.

This is a rule I somehow made for myself long ago and I can’t break the habit.  This is a need for me that over-complicates life and makes me less willing to entertain since to do so demands so much time.  Am I capable of slapping a pot of chili on the table along with a stack of bowls and some spoons and letting others help themselves?  Can I point at the fridge and ask them to choose their pleasure? Use paper napkins and mismatched glasses? Put a bottle of salad dressing or ketchup on the table rather than putting them into a bowl?  Would doing so detract from the pleasure of guests?  Would it even detract from my own?

I fuss and fuss with everything.  My art pieces are added to and subtracted from for weeks or months before I finally make a decision, choosing from thousands of objects stowed away in compartmentalized drawers.  Perhaps this is why I love traveling and making art with what I find around me.  Given fewer choices, I fuss less.  I long for a simpler life, yet seem unable to break the rules I set for myself long ago.

My newest fantasy is to stage a huge garage sale and to sell off jewelry, clothes, excess art objects stowed under beds and in closets and even, I admit, behind a painting in my seldom-used fireplace. Then I could stow the rest of my personal objects in my studio and take off for a year, living simply from a suitcase with a few clothes and a few tools and art supplies and my computer.

Where would I go and in these new places, would it be easier to break the rules, to stay simple and to concentrate on what is most important?  I’ve actually done this five times in my life, and every time I’ve ended up filling my life up fuller:  more things, more obligations, more expectations of doing it all.  Will I ever accomplish my goal of breaking these rules or will it have to be that final move that accomplishes what I’ve never managed to maintain in life–taking away all my distractions, until there remains only me?  And then, inevitably, taking away even me.

The Prompt: Breaking the Rules–Think about the last time you broke a rule (a big one, not just ripping the tags off your pillows). Were you burned, or did things turn out for the best?