Pam's Tall Tales

Minimalism versus the Messy Life: My own take on Chaos Theory

When I was twenty or so I read an article on life-work balance that recommended, “ditch the curtains and tablecloths because when you buy one item to cover another this means there will be two things you will have to clean.” Sage advice - I have been curtain-less ever since.

However competing with this desire for minimalism is an equally intense drive to save, preserve and repurpose everything.  Inevitably, over time, it becomes increasingly difficult not to accumulate a goodly amount of paraphernalia. A move certainly helps to clear house, but, after a quarter of a century in one place, a fire would be better. Periodically, I am driven, by some vain fantasy of “getting ones life in order”.  Inevitably this means a trip to IKEA, where it is statistically impossible to leave without acquiring another $300 worth of stuff, purchased in some futile attempt to organize the existing detritus.

Here’s how stuff leads to more stuff. Take the dogs for example. One dog leads to a second dog to keep the first one happy. Together they produce 2X bales of dog hair that blow around the living room like tumbleweeds.  A new fangled robotic vacuum is purchased to back up to the conventional one so that friends can visit us without dying of asphyxiation. By the time the second dog is successfully housetrained the floors need renovating.  This involves moving thousands of books twice and on the second move our thirty-year old IKEA bookshelves disintegrate.

The book problem

The first dog promptly chews the piles of books while the other develops an insane desire to wrestle requiring the purchase of rugs to protect the newly refurbished wood floor from its claws. The robot cannot cope, throws a hissy fit, and shreds the rugs. The dogs join in chewing and regurgitating the remains, generally on cue, under the table, just as guests are sitting down for dinner. 

When I was younger and a single parent struggling to hold together family and a job with a workaholic supervisor - an old flame suggested I consider a second career in crisis management since I dealt with it (on reflection he probably meant created it) on a daily basis. If he’s reading this now he’ll be laughing and thinking “lucky escape - people don’t change” and, alas, he would be right.  But mercifully with age the concept of “getting ones life in order” becomes moot since three quarters of it is already over. Moreover, somewhere along the way you make your peace with the fact that life does not take place in some minimalist Calvin Klein Home showroom and begin to embrace its glorious riot of messiness. So I am now considering built in bookcases with bulletproof glass doors because the only other solution is to burn the books or shoot the dogs.

Heidelberg in Spring

Heidelberg Castles and Alte Brucke

I am writing what is likely to be my last grant.  If awarded, my scientific life will be spared for five more years - and that will allow me to bring my contribution to science to completion and take me to a respectable age for retirement. If not, and the current  <7% odds at the NIH are definitely not in my favor, then despite the acknowledged unfairness of the situation, I will be unceremoniously stripped of lab space, dusted into a closet and psychologically pressured into early retirement.  All in the service of raising our ratings in the US News and World Report, a rag whose only purpose is to make a facile superficial ranking of US Medical Schools, based in part on NIH dollars per square foot. Such is the life of a US scientist. The hard-earned Cell, Science and Nature publications and the letters from peers attesting to ones standing that rightfully gained us tenure in the past now count for naught – the end will be Darwinian.  To date I have been “lucky” - few of my female colleagues have survived to my age – almost 60 - an age that men of my father’s era used to refer to as “neither use nor ornament”. My older colleagues have fallen by the wayside in droves “to spend more time with their families” - we all know what this means. 

 

A 1911 photograph of Thomas Edison (Library of Congress)

 Be that as it may, my grant writing strategy is, as it always has been, to begin the day by dissipating the anxiety associated with such unfavorable odds and outcomes by fervently putting the more mundane aspects of life in order - the logic being that - if the detritus in the kitchen sink can be tamed - then in the process my thoughts will likewise be brought into order and distilled. It has worked in the past – the epiphany usually comes during the last hour as the final drawer of old socks is excavated.  Creative writers like Doris Lessing, tell the same tale – of days and weeks of seemingly unproductive pacing, of feverish cleaning or daydreaming preceding the emergence of some great novel.  Once, after giving a lecture at UMDNJ, my hosts kindly took me on a tour of Thomas Edison’s laboratory in West Orange, NJ.  Edison had long recognized that he came upon his best inventions after taking afternoon naps and to that end had installed a day bed in his beautiful library to foster and embrace this method.  Somehow intense thinking demands these subliminal rituals to steady the mind and often, as Edison knew, the need “to sleep on it”. 

Yesterday in quest of this necessary Karma, I rose early; it was a beautiful Wednesday market morning. I marshaled the dogs and out we strode in determined husky fashion, on our own private Iditarod to quell the rising tide of panic, past the U.N and on towards Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. There amid the pasture raised eggs, the artisan cheese and the mounds of freshly picked asparagus I found a beautiful bunch of white lilacs -  pervading the market with their perfume. Despite the ludicrousness of straggling home through a sea of commuters, with rambunctious dogs and a backpack full of provisions - I could not resist buying a large bunch of branches. 

The fragrance of fresh lilacs made me swoon. The grim-faced commuters on their way towards a day of drudgery were similarly soothed by their waft and smiled at the blossom branches waving in the breeze and dogs frolicking - a little burst of refreshing life.

This evening the scent of lilac drifting around the apartment reminded me that almost thirty years ago to the day, on a similar chilly May morning, I set out on the big adventure. I took my first flight ever to interview for my postdoctoral position in Heidelberg and had purchased a cut-price airplane ticket (in case I didn’t get the job) - 25 pound sterling return from Eastleigh airport to Frankfurt via Amsterdam. The prop-plane was a low flying hedge-hopper that must have been left over from WW2 – the co-pilot got up mid flight to serve us coffee and boiled sweets to help with the lack of cabin pressure.  “Come for a week in spring when the cherries will be in bloom along the river” my future advisor had said.  Indeed they were – it was “Spargel Season” in the palatinate, the smell of lilacs wafted over Heidelberg and the banks of the Neckar were a riot of pink blossom. It was a pity that it rained relentlessly for all four days, perhaps some heavenly foreboding of a gloomier end. But that day I was young, it was spring, and the air was full of promise. 

Mishka the Book Fiend

It can’t be helped. I have become one of those batty middle-aged dog ladies.  

Mishka at Dag Hammersjold Park NYC

 

It started innocently enough with a casual perusal of the City Animal Care and Control (CACC) website. On a whimsy I filled in the “breed request” and pictures of plaintive bedraggled huskies started appearing in my mailbox. “Lets just go and have a look,” I told the long-suffering husband.  Foolishly he tried to dissuade with logic. But then he made the fatal blunder of forgetting our 25^th anniversary and guilt forced him to capitulate.  We trekked up to 110 and 2^nd Ave, the Spanish Harlem neighborhood that houses many waif and stray organizations.

 

No one with a heart enters the CACC and leaves without a dog. This is exactly how we got our old friend, Jack, seven years ago.  The city has an impossible task. A long queue of kittens in boxes and puppies on bits of rope preceded us to the sign-in. Once upstairs, forlorn dogs gazed out from row after row of cages.  Mishka was in the corner, unkempt, rail thin and according to his card owner abandoned. Even I was a little taken aback and nervous about his wolf-like stature but we took him out – he licked our faces - the die was cast. 

 

Mishka (aka Shadow) advert at the CACC

We picked him up the next day.”  Dazed and confused from the anaesthetic for his “operation” he stumbled out into the bright lights of the crowded waiting room like a convict on a perp walk.  We removed his “cone of shame”, bundled him into the car, and arriving home attempted to stow him quietly in the bedroom.  He let out a long and plaintive wolf howl. Jack sensing the intruder gave us a look of betrayal.

 

The main problem was that Mishka stank to high heaven. Soon, so did we, and every room we put him in. Even the vet said he had never met a dog this ripe. But baths were banned for 10 days and so we were relegated to sneaking in and out via the service elevator along with the garbage.  Unfortunately, Jack caught wind of him too, and, his suspicions now confirmed, he let it be known by throwing a 48 hour hissy fit that “the guest” had overstayed his welcome. Haggard from sleepless nights spent comforting one dog or placating the other I called our daughter the dog groomer for advice. Sensing her mother, who is generally a well-seasoned expert in self-inflicted crisis management, was at the end of her tether she refrained from the “I told you so” and, like the alpha female that she is, took charge and prescribed a crate for each dog.  It worked like a dream. Dogs love dens and as the crate was half the size of the average NYC studio the new arrival thought he was the Hilton.

Mishka thinking about brunch.

With their territories now amicably staked out the more serious problem emerged that Mishka continued to starve himself. Noting his runny nose the vet prescribed smelly foods, but his cold turned to kennel cough and then to sneezing blood up the walls and all over us – the vet warned us it could turn to pneumonia that would require hospitalization if he didn’t eat within three days. Of course it was a weekend followed by a bank holiday. We boiled up vats of liver all to no avail. As the 11^th hour approached and hospitalization looked inevitable I decided on one last tactic and planted Jack in front of Mishka’s crate. The sight of Jack scarfing down a big plate of liver dripping with Heme caused pack instincts to click in.  Recognizing it’s eat or be eaten, Mishka sat up and promptly wolfed down a bowl of dog food. We spent the next two days feeding him up, scrubbing the apartment and finally bathing the homeless man. 

Husky Meet Up 42nd st. Dog Run

 

Now that Mishka has settled in his cantankerous young husky personality is emerging. For example, he responded to being briefly shut in the bedroom by gnawing the bottom off the door. Last week he shredded a wicker dining room chair (after 25 years of service – it was a mercy killing).  Yesterday he ate the Calvin Klein bedspread. 

Mishka the Book Fiend Sharpening his Teeth

Of late he’s shown a literary bent – first he cut his teeth on “Treasures of Cheshire” and then took a fancy to “A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of Costa Rica”. I plan to channel his urge to recycle books, creatively, to rid myself of all the authors I don’t like. To this end all works by Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner have been relocated to an appetizing level.  Then, of course, I'm trying to interest him in Dave’s pile that’s been gathering dust in the corner for twenty five years. Dave shares with Hans Castorp, the hero of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, a love for excruciatingly boring books of the “Great Steam Ships of the World” genre – food for thought just waiting to be gnashed to smithereens.