Flow
Yet
we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for
it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Flow: The Psychology
of Optimal Experience
Saturday
morning: Two chapters into Csikszentmihaly and Im
eager to engineer flow for my kids, whom Ive neglected
while chasing yet another new idea. Today, I decide, we
are going to paint. I load them into the minivan, drive
into the city. At the art supply store we wander long aisles
of brushes, color tubes, crayons, cuts of paper. Finally,
each boy chooses a paint-by-number. At the checkout lane
the middle boy wants a chocolate bar. I say no, not
now, and I repeat these words several times, as calmly
as possible, against the rising water of his wrath. When
the levee bursts I am soaked through with his screams, fists,
mad flailings. Back in the car I stare straight ahead and
clench the wheel, and at home I can do nothing but shake
my head and sigh as the boys swirl paint around their cardboard
canvases, oblivious to the numbers and the light-blue contour
lines.
at
the window
gazing at the rain
seamless gray skies
That
night the sink clogs. I suspect the kids, blame them, then
plunge the drain to no avail. Half a bottle of Liquid-Plumr
returns only a burning sulphurous stench and a bunch of
black flakes, a dandruff of rusted calcium deposits. I go
to the store and buy a plumbers snake, which knocks
loose the clog, yes, but which bores through the rusted
trap. I go back to the store to buy a new trap, return,
and while removing the old trap I inadvertently snap off
the corroded tailpiece that connects to it. So I go back
to the store. But now its deep into Sunday morning.
I am tired but I am not going to sleep until I am done with
the sink. I am immersed in pipes and joints, the smells
of grease and putty. I am in the flow.
so
clear and so cool
I drink water straight
from the bathroom tap
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