The Quiet Fury

It is my opinion that everyone has at least one thing they covet from Pottery Barn.

In fact, even though all those sports stars say they’re going to Disneyland, I think, deep inside in a place they don’t share with others, they’re thinking, “I’m going to buy the Sutter Hand Painted Secretary from potterybarn.com.”

As ubiquitous in the mail as the Victoria’s Secret catalog used to be (see my earlier musings on shopping and porn), Pottery Barn publications are often thick, always glossy, seemingly seasonal, and endlessly compelling.  Not to mention redundant, because those smart marketers change only the cover and the first few pages.  The rest is exactly the same as the one you got last week.

But I fall for it.  It’s the thickness that gets me.  The dense weightiness that’s almost like a magazine.  That triggers the same anticipation as a new VOGUE.  I want to get inside, make some tea, and settle in for some….what?

Material voyeurism?  Fantasies about the life I could have or the person I’d be if only I had the Capitola Trunk or the Terrace Mirrored Buffet?  Visions of washing my face over the Classic Sink Console (in white with the Carrara marble top and Satin Nickel hardware) or sinking deep into the Mackenzie Sleigh bed at the end of the day?

All of the above, thank you.

Is that so wrong?  Isn’t that our cultural mandate?  To be always desirous, striving, reaching?

Supposedly that’s what keeps the economy going.  Gotta stay hungry people. Terrorist attack, get a little spendy.  Buy, buy, buy.

Yet money and acquisition, at this time in our lives, seem dicey drivers.  What do we really want from Pottery Barn?

Safety, baby.  A plushy soft place to fall.   Come inside, shut the door, light some candles, plump some pillows, and fall asleep.

Sleep.  It’s better than being awake.  I think that’s the Pottery Barn promise.

Who doesn’t feel the lure of the small town?  I hear it in the early morning, underneath the nearby freeway, garbage trucks, and construction equipment.  I hear it at 4:30 on the 405.  I hear it when all roads to nature involve noise, cars, people and congestion.

I love a small town.  A single blinking 4-way, small businesses lining quaint blocks, the diner where the waitresses know everyone and call you “hon,” the library with its story lady and clusters of schoolchildren, neighbors who know you by name.

I’ve lived in cities most of my adult life (Boston, New York, Los Angeles) and have rarely known my neighbors.  Even now, I’ve lived in this building for 12 years and only recently started talking to the people around me.  Part of me really loves anonymity, the going about of my own business without accountability for my routine.

I hate the idea of people all up in your business.  In fact, I hate it so much, the most successful relationship of my life was with a man living 3,000 miles away.  All the time in the world for me without having to really accommodate someone else.  (I grew up with a father who was all about the crowding, so I’ve swung perhaps a little far the other way…)

So it’s with a certain amount of startle that I realize not only do I want a quieter life, but I want one of greater community and connectedness, I want people around me to know me, to stop me in the street, to pop over.  (OK, maybe not pop over, but you know, be within calling distance of coming by.)

This is the biggest question of the past few months:  How do I change my life?  How do I shift my focus from work/career (the centerpiece of my life for 24 years) to family/friends/relationships/meaning/home?  How do I make work the snapshot in the frame of my life instead of the picture in the middle?

I read stories about this in More and O, but they seem to always leap from “I was a big city book editor and now I raise chickens” without dwelling on the messiness of, “So all I had was $13K in the bank and no idea of employment, but I made the leap, and for the first six months it was very messy, but then things started to turn around and suddenly I had blue ribbon chickens and a new life.”

It’s the valley of the shadow of these successes that I want to know about.  Leaps of faith I can get behind, I guess what I really want, though, is an informed leap.

I hear my town a-callin’ — how do I answer?

What is it about QVC?  If I channel surf and QVC is pitching jewelry, I will stop.  And watch.  For up to 20 minutes, in a hypnotic state.

I don’t buy.  I don’t want to buy.  I just want to watch.  The hostesses with their beautiful manicures, the shiny baubles, all those Diamonels, Diamoniques, Diamonesques….lovely.

A gent friend says he feels similarly about online porn.  He doesn’t want to buy, just wants to watch.  In the same sort of hypnotic state.

I don’t know enough about brain waves or neural pathways to understand exactly what is happening when I see Joan Rivers or the spokesman for Kenneth Jay Lane — but it’s something akin to balmy.

You get a sense of life going on.  My friend may feel “well, someone’s having sex somewhere” and it’s soothing, all’s right in the world, people are having sex and I’m watching it, so for now, that’s what’s going on.  (That what he’s seeing is really one step removed from people actually having sex (or, more clearly, having a genuine intimate connection) is another matter — or not, maybe online sex is the same thing as a QVC knock-off of a Cartier necklace.  An engaging representation of the real thing.)

Anyway, when I watch QVC, jewelry becomes the center of the world.  There’s nothing else, just the genuine, authentic, Asian inspired replication of whatever Marie Antoinette wore to the guillotine.

And in a way, that’s what I mean.  The focus, for that 20 minutes, is on only what Marie wore, not where she was headed. (slight pun there)  And so it is for me:  When the entire frame is the Jacqueline Kennedy Reproduction 5th Avenue Status necklace (oval textured links with textured graduated beads highlight this stunning goldtone necklace…), how bad can things actually be?

Wouldn’t it be great if everything came in a choice of colors in three easy payments?  When it feels, as it can do, that the paying never stops, 20 minutes of accessible glitz is really really helpful.

I was in the acupuncturist’s office the other day, waiting for the weekly treatment that is designed to unblock stagnant energy and help me sleep.  On the table was the clicker we’re given after the needles are inserted and we are meant to meditate for 30 minutes.  The clicker is, essentially, the panic button, what you press if you are overwhelmed, scared or concerned.

Printed on the clicker were the words, Modern Life.

Indeed.  It does seem to me that the need to scream for help has become a sort of thing these days.   In my parent’s day, it seemed people were expected to be more self-sufficient.  Their post-war ethos was one of great opportunity that was there for the taking.  Take it, grab it with both hands, but know you are then responsible for it.  Both of my parents had a great sense of personal responsibility that manifested in hard work and self-sufficiency.

In our more modern hands, this can morph into a great sense of personal culpability.  We seem to have lost the creative part of opportunity and made hay only of the responsibility part. Which leads to overwhelm, a spike in the self-help book business, and the desire to turn it all outward:  Blame, blame, blame.

I hate to be topical, but this current financial situation is not the result of sisters doing it for themselves.  This is personal responsibility gone on vacation and “me me me, now now now” coming to stay.  It’s only disguised as finances.

No wonder we want a panic button!  We are drowning in wants, ignorant of true needs, blaming “them” and screaming for help.  I get it — as I’ve said, rescue is a favorite fantasy.

It’s just that I pictured Prince Charming, not Henry Paulson.  Or any of the other aging white men out there to help, none with the stones to call it:  We live beyond our means.

Add the war, the endless pointless war, employment stats, housing issues, the election, few suitable men available for dating in Los Angeles….the temptation is strong to put Dr. Lu’s clicker in my pocket, take it home, and save it for just in case.

The problem is:  Who’s listening?  Who’s going to respond to that call?

The nice thing about working less is having plenty of time to think. The hideous thing about working less is having plenty of time to think.

All this thinking leads to insights which, ideally, lead to action.

And “action” is where the trouble starts. Always has been. The argument between my will and that of the authoritative power that has the plan. See, action involves making a decision and decisions are what I most want to avoid. Although I didn’t know this. Until I took leave. And all the thinking.

I’d always thought of myself as a keen decision-maker. Certainly in business I’m known for a particular cut-to-the chase decisiveness, I just assumed it carried over to the rest of my life. Over the years I’ve felt myself saying this job, this guy, this city, this hat. And moving forward. Yet now, today, I look back on all that and see, OK, a thread, but not necessarily a purposeful picture.

A sneaking suspicion arises — that I do not want to make decisions at all. Followed by an insight — that I’m translating (at a furious pace, too), all notions of God, Universe, Higher Power, Spontaneity (etc.), into a “rescue me” fantasy of fantastic proportion.

I blame Captain von Trapp. Of course it’s a man, all of us of a certain generation (despite our rap) want the handsome hero to solve it all. I was swept away, as a child, by Captain VTs handsomeness, authority, derring-do and how he made Maria’s life just by loving her. It’s a tough image to live up to (and no man has, yet), and an embarrassing one to hold. Yet, there it is: I’m still sort of hoping (reluctant to say “waiting”) for my version to come along and make the decision for me.

I know. Shocking. Yet I am addicted to the idea that there is something special for me to do, a right path, and I need only be open enough or willing enough or patient enough, and it will reveal itself to me.