My One Wild And Precious Life On the Couch

With apologies to Mary Oliver

Image by Nathan Osman from Pixabay

 . . . Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

That’s the line from Mary Oliver’s gorgeous poem “The Summer Day” which is quoted so often it’s sadly close to meme status. I mean, there’s practically an entire category of Mary Oliver merch, much of it bearing that line, just on Amazon.

Which I am not linking to, since Amazon is one of the three places, both literal and online, that I am staying the hell away from this Black Friday.

The other two are Target and Home Depot. No links to them either.

That’s because, in my own small way, I am registering my disappointment in all three companies by participating in this year’s “We Ain’t Buyin’ It” campaign.

From November 25 through December 1, I won’t spend a dime at any of those retailers. I have friends who work for Amazon, but I’m not happy with Jeff Bezos for his lickspittle financial support of the Trump regime. I’m unhappy with Target for dismantling their DEI programs and for getting rid of the LGBTQ+ products they used to center in their stores, which I thought were so cool (and I’m a straight, cis, old white lady, just sayin’).

And I’m pissed at Home Depot. Because ICE. Need I say more?

Going a week without shopping at those three giants isn’t too heavy a lift. I doubt any of them will register my absence, even though in the normal course of our daily lives, my handy husband finds it necessary to go to Home Depot multiple times a week (often within the same day, because there’s no going to Home Depot just once for anything, and where we live, Lowe’s is too damn far away), and I confess to having a bad Amazon habit. 

I can’t pretend to moral purity anytime, but certainly not after December 2. For this week, however, any shopping I’m doing is going to be local.

Turns out there’s a locally-owned Ace Hardware store not too far from our house, and did you know they still sell rubber-band-powered balsa wood airplane kits? 

Not to mention several shops downtown devoted to indie-made products, all produced here in Idaho. 

But on Black Friday, I’m not shopping at all. Not even online. Again, this isn’t due to strength of character so much as my contrarian nature. If everybody else is doing it, count me out.

If I were an enlightened individual, I’d be spending this Black Friday (is it just me, or does anyone else have trouble with that term?), doing mindful and soul-enhancing activities. Hiking, journaling, writing poetry, baking bread (as if we need the carbs after yesterday).

Or better yet, non-activity. Meditating. Going within. Drawing closer to unity with the Great Whatever.

But I’m not doing, or not not doing, any of that. For my psyche, that’s all way too purposeful on this interstitial occasion, this not-quite-a-holiday.

There has been much written about the benefits of a post-Thanksgiving fart walk. I was yesterday years old before I’d heard of such a thing, but it doesn’t take long to get up to speed on the principles, which can be summed up with the phrase, “better out than in.”

Today, I’m going one better. I’m farting around all day long. My only quest has been for a really good latte. Otherwise I’ve been tinkering with batteries for the many, many electric candles of all shapes and configurations that I haul out this time of year. 

That part involves some salty language, especially when I learn once again that some of the candles come with battery compartments that are sealed with eensy teensy screws which demand the deployment of an eensy teensy screwdriver, but not the one you use to repair your eyeglasses, which is just a tad too small. We actually possess a screwdriver of the correct dimensions because this is not our first rodeo, but locating it every year is just one of the character-building rituals of the holiday season.

It’s necessary, though, since I gave up using actual, live candles some years back after hosting a holiday open house in which a guest came close to immolation. She escaped the incident with only a gaping hole in the back of her Christmas sweater, but I’ve never gotten over it. 

That’s a story for another day.

For today, now that I’ve got all the candles and lights sorted and my husband has figured out how to set the timers that stymie me every damn year, the deliciousness of a long, lazy afternoon spreads before me.

I might take a walk. Or not. I may stay right here on the sofa and let the cat use me as an adjustable mattress, which he controls with the use of carefully modulated meows.

Later, around cocktail hour, my husband and I may decorate the tree. I already set it up almost all by myself, and am inordinately proud of having found where the light strands plug into each other. 

Then we can Netflix our way into bedtime.

It may not sound all that wild and precious, but it’s a nice way to spend the day. And we can do it without spending a red cent at Amazon, Target, or Home Depot.

Not that red cents are a thing anymore, since the penny has been retired.

Tomorrow, God willing, is another day. One with the potential to be wild and precious. Or just blessedly ordinary.

I’m happy with either.