To Not

We eat a lot of soup and Spaghettios and Raviolios at our house. Mostly it's me. I eat like a five year old and always have. Of course, I love Suzanne's cooking and I'm lucky to have someone who doesn't think mixing spaghetti noodles with pork and beans is a good idea. But when left to my own devices, I eat Campbell's chicken noodle soup with saltines and tons of pepper, vegetable beef soup, Raviolios, and Spaghettios. This of course means, as those of you with grade-school age children know, tons of Labels for Education. On the back of every Campbell's product is a little label next to the UPC code and it's worth a certain number of points. Grade schools collect them and once they have enough (Hundreds of thousands? Millions? A kajillion? Who knows?), the schools can trade them in for playground equipment and other supplies paid for by Campbell's. It's a nice thing and a clever move on the part of the company.

So anyway, this means that every time I crack open a can of rubbery ravioli or of condensed noodles and broth, I slip a thin paring knife between the label and the can and twist it slightly out so the paper splits open. I carefully cut the UPC and the little point designation out and put it in the envelope that's magneted to the fridge. Then I rinse the can out and walk to the garage where I throw it in our big, orange recycling bin near the door. It's part of my ritual.(Yes, it can be said that I have a soup eating ritual. Sad, I know.)

But the other day, I didn't do any of that. I think it was a can of ravioli or something and some of that thick, red dye #5 sauce got on the label. I looked at it for second and knew I could salvage it if I wanted to -- but then I determined that I didn't want to. I simply walked to the garbage can and tossed the whole thing in, unwashed, unstripped, 5 valuable Campbell's points going to waste.

Know what? It felt really good.

I won't make a habit of it or anything but for that moment, it felt really nice to not have to split the label off, to not gingerly cut the upc out, to not rinse, to not recycle. Felt good, I say.

It occurred to me that sometimes it's immensely liberating simply to not do something that you always do or something that you're supposed to do. Now, I'm not talking about foregoing important things that you're supposed to do. I'm not in favor of disregarding things like you're not supposed to kill, steal, lie, etc. I'm not even talking about playing hooky from work, although that's a pretty great feeling too. I'm talking about the feeling you get when you know you should go home and make that inexpensive, nutritious meal but decide instead to just pack up and head for Wendy's. I'm talking about laying around in bed for that extra hour instead of getting up and vacuuming the house. I'm talking about not answering the phone simply because you don't feel like it. (This only applies to people who feel like they should answer the phone. I'm closely connected to at least one person who feels no pressure to answer the phone whatsoever. The White House could be ringing her phone and Suzanne would look at it and say, "Meh, I'll call 'em back later.")

Sometimes to not can be one of the best things you can do. It can be taken too far, of course. My Grandpa Brown took this to a bit of an extreme in some cases. When we'd get food from the drive-in, we'd eat in his truck on the way back to Pleasantview and once we were done, he'd take all the trash -- cups, burger wrappers, styrofoam fry containers, etc. and just toss it out of the window as we sped along. Jason and I would squeal with delight and beg him to throw more stuff out. It was a different age and I certainly don't fault Grandpa (although he probably would have gotten in trouble if Grandma knew how often he did it) but that's one example of taking to not to extremity.

When I first thought about this post, I really was just thinking about the tiny, quotidian things that we lock ourselves into always doing - like cutting labels off soup cans. But today (Saturday) I starting thinking more about to not in a larger sense. This is one of the first Saturdays in a while that hasn't featured some kind of bustling activity. The girls and I went to clean the church this morning but that was pretty much it. No swimming lessons, no ill-fated trip to the roller rink, no massive set of errands or shopping, no nothing. The girls played outside, I repaired the rain gutter that had separated from the house, we rode bikes, we watched a movie. That was pretty much it and it was sort of spectacular. I think about the advice I've heard recently about over scheduling kids and it seems like there's a lot of wisdom to it.

I watched Maryn and Avery wander around outside and pick up sticks and dig little holes with them for over an hour. They played on the swing set. They picked up rocks and made up games about how one of them is a princess but she's really, really small and the other one is a giant but he's a prince and he's looking for his love, etc. I think unstructured time is wildly valuable for little kids but I also think it's highly underestimated for adults. As grown-ups, life is busy. Job, school, calling, caring for the little monkeys in your house, pets for some, time consuming hobbies for others, lessons/practice/rehearsal,ailing relatives, property to care for, etc. There's a lot to life and there often isn't a lot of time for just sitting around or going for an aimless walk.

I think my life would be better if I made more time for silence and stillness. I think most people would benefit from a little less structure and a little less running from one thing to another.