Overflow
Oct 10 2013


At first, I judged,
about standards falling
giving up.
I could never live like this, I thought,
a minimalist
used to cool order.

But then I sensed the warmth, the joyful noise,
and the clutter seemed rich
with lives well-lived;
neatness
will not be anyone’s

death-bed regret.

Still, I felt anxious

at so much happening

all-at-once.

As if I were the thin white line

before order fell

to the cheerful hordes,

with their stuffed toys

and tiny mismatched shoes.

While she caught me off guard

with bemused envy,

wistful that anything

would be just where I left it

in a week, a month.
Yes, there is a place for everything, I fussed,
as she tucked into my lovingly tended chair

creasing its brushed suede leather,

no coaster, her cup.

The one bedroom condo
on the 25th floor
is a showroom

of clean design.
Her Victorian
brims over.

In the great room

a sprawling sofa, to wallow in

paint, smudged with fingerprints

and hard plastic toys,

like booby-traps

for unsuspecting guests.

And how quickly kids grow.
A life-line
in magic marker
on the living-room door,

as a little boy squirms
stretching tip-toe.

While in the kitchen
a delicious smell,
as cast iron sizzles
pots overflow.


This is a quote from the author Jhumpa Lahiri, who was being interviewed about her new book The Lowlands: "I was always fascinated, going to the homes of my American friends,” she says. “They were messy, there was stuff everywhere, there were so many books, things, you know – a life lived fully, in every sense of the word, and I was very aware of this, and I remember my own family’s life had this sort of barren, strange quality." Her words reflect a particular immigrant experience; but when I read this, it brought back a sudden memory of a similar feeling from maybe 15 or 20 years ago, a moment when this whole cascade of self-doubt and angst-filled emotion overcame me; especially so when I read "life lived fully" (which I've brazenly lifted, morphing it into the weakly disguised "lives well-lived"). I was quite a neat-freak back then. Not so much now, I'd say. It was -- and is -- perfectly clear to me that I need a calm well-ordered environment in order to feel in control.

But I also realize that living like that means you have to sacrifice a lot of potential richness, the clutter and chaos and well-upholstered warmth of family life. And the kitchen is at the heart of this. So I chose to end the poem with the smell of food, while the physical act of a pot overflowing calls back to over-stuffed Victorian bric-a-brac, a home brimming over, and lives fully lived.

The 25th floor condo is a fabrication. Mine is a small bungalow that is more suburban than cosmopolitan: hardly the proverbial "bachelor pad"; but I did -- and do -- live alone, and as in the poem, much prefer austere minimalism to tchotchkes and clutter and dust collectors. Other than that, the essence of the story is very much true.