[stylist] The Heaven of Simple Things

[Applebutter Hill]

Bill,
I love this post! You appreciate the small things and you appreciate the
mechanical world. Very nicely written.
Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
Houts via stylist
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 7:49 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: [stylist] The Heaven of Simple Things



Hey Blinky Colleagues:

I just posted this on Facebook.  I think it's pretty good for such an early
morning post, and thought I'd share it with you all; a bit of reading to do,
maybe, over your morning cup.


--Bill


---


This morning, I've been thinking about the heaven in tiny things. How it is
that we Americans seem to be driven by ideas about wealth and celebrity, so
often supposing that the real life, with the real people, the real money is
somewhere down the road rather than in our kitchens, our garages, our
bedrooms.
But I've been thinking lately that you can find heaven in tiny homebody
revelations. For me, I feel a deep satisfaction when things simply work the
way they're supposed to. For instance, I'm fascinated by coffee makers. We
use the simplest sort at our house, without all the bells and timers and
dancing iguanas which come with your more expensive models. And the thing
which gets me every time is the way the coffee drips down through a hole in
the lid and into the carafe. I mean, isn't that just the best and tiniest
glory? The coffee percolates and it was someone's job at the factory, maybe
the job of several someones, to make sure that the ready hot coffee would
drip through the lid and into the carafe without splashing, each and every
time you brew some. It's miraculous!

Another time, I was sitting at my computer in a chair I had bought from
Keeg's on Broadway, if anyone remembers that Sunday morning Capitol Hill
destination which has been gone for twenty years or more, so passes the
glory of the world. And one morning I was sitting in the chair and the left
arm rest became detached from the back of the chair. I looked at the arm
rest and I could see that the screw which held one thing to another had
become unscrewed. The thing about this was that the screw was a peculiar
octagonal thing, and it called for a peculiar octagonal screwdriver to wind
it back into place. Well, as it happens, I recognized the gauge from a
toolkit I had bought for my mountain bike. So I fit the weird screw back
into the hole, dug out the Swiss Army-like bike tool and wound the naughty
screw back into place, drawing armresst and back into their perfect marriage
once again. I remember the thrill I felt when I realized that this was all
working exactly the way it should work. There had been a breakdown, but I
had recognized the problem, realized that I had the right tool to address
it, and set to work. The whole incident took less than five minutes and I
was back in business. I remember the tiny ecstatic groan given out by the
octagonal screw as it wound back down into its seat. You can go through many
years of feeling that nothing is working quite the way it's supposed to. You
don't get to date that hot redhead, you don't get the higher paying position
at work, the cake you tried to bake, the one with the chocolate raspberry
frosting which looked so good on the box falls flat. But on this one
occasion --and there have been several like it in my life; I'm not as sad as
all that-- I had exactly the right tool for the problem, and set to work,
and Lady Universe grinned her big gummy grin, and I heard that happy groan,
and I was back in business.

Now, almost nobody, and certainly nobody we're likely to know, ever wins the
lottery. And it's just a numbers thing, an odds thing, and nobody's
punishing us or mocking us or trying to make us feel sad. But maybe as a
culture, we would do better to step away from the Big Media version of
success, of celebrity and wealth, and prepare ourselves for that tiny
ecstatic groan, that cosmic Yes which comes to every one of us now and then.
I think we might be richer and happier if we did.


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