Today I committed to doing morning pages, and that’s the last thing I’m going to say about that because I think keeping morning pages personal—resisting the temptation to telegraph the experience—is an important part of it.
But I do like to overshare. So I’m doing something sneaky and adding evening pages, too. Evening pages will be ten minutes of writing that I will publish right here. Still stream of consciousness, rough and loose, but with sharing.
For my first evening page exercise, I want to write about something I heard Father Richard Rohr describe in a sermon. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest I’ve long heard about but only recently started to read (he’s written lots of books). In a recent snippet, he speaks about the joy and relief of appreciating something without needing to own it.
I feel called out. When I admire something, I have a very bad tendency to, in my next thought, want to own it. This shows up most insidiously as a fetishization of real estate. When we go to Hawaii, I spend the flight home stalking listings on Zillow. Same goes for anywhere, really. If I love it—if I feel at home there—I try figure out how I can own a piece of it.
HGTV doesn’t help. I love interior design. I love harmonious spaces. I love sets. I’d love to design a house that feels like the set of the most amazing version of my life.
But it’s all a trap, isn’t it?
When Richard Rohr describes this phenomena (which is a tenet of Franciscan life), it’s like a cosmic hand pulling back the veil and placing a hand on my shoulder. A voice accompanies the hand saying, “I’m only going to say this infinite times: you can’t own beauty.”
And not because creation is stingy or anything. You just can’t own it. Beauty’s ephemera and agency is there by design. The moment you try to claim it as yours, it’s gone. I believe that to be true. A butterfly is more beautiful when it’s free to fly away.
But here’s something weird. If I get close to acting on this desire—if my net gets too close to the butterfly—I’m assaulted by what Zelda calls a “mystery feeling,” which you and I might call anxiety. I’ve thought it was pesky, but now I appreciate it because I know it’s my soul reeling me back in. Putting me back on the path of wonder. Pulling me away from the ego’s insatiable hunger.
The desire to acquire has gotten us into quite a mess, hasn’t it? Imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, commercialism. There are no good isms associated with this impulse. I’m not saying this to disparage ownership of everything or anything. I’m here to clarify for myself what I think it would provide. Not happiness. Not meaning. Not purpose.
Perhaps stability . . . I can’t think of much else.
I’ve been on a house hunt lately because I just feel like I should, ya know? I Want it. We’re almost the only family in our preschool community that doesn’t own a home and sometimes it makes me feel like less of a mom that I haven’t invested in that way for my child. She deserves a home, the security of it. The inheritance. She deserves a yard and stairs. Zelda really wants stairs.
Maybe one day. I won’t discount it. But if we do, it will be for security. For the financial sense. And if it’s the right time, I’m sure it will be fun. But it will not make me any happier than I am right now when I spend a day with my family. Or when I feel inspired. I will not attach my joy or my worth to ownership of a home or of anything.
God. What a relief.
