Ordinary. No Extra.

I think I'm a "more is better" person. I suppose this is kind of embarrassing to admit since it makes me gluttonous and grabbing, but I say  it on the pretense that I'm not alone. We're a "more (and more, more, more, more please) is better" kind of culture. So we fill and strive and seek, and seek some more, all to quiet the discomfort of never actually "arriving" (shocker). And then what? Do we go numb?  

I've heard this rat-race rant before, and I bet you have too. I've heard it and continue to whole-heartedly participate although I'm not sure why because when I think about life as a mad-dash it totally stresses me out. 

The thing is we are all off to these fabulous destinations lickety-split. And I've found that sometimes these "ends" are idealized just as we like them, when really the good stuff might not be the things we're conjuring but the things that are right in front of us-- slapping us upside the face.  The things we are pushing, heaving even, out of our way, so we can get to our shiny places that don't exist. 

I know I ignore the beautiful slaps in the face because I don't think they are exciting enough.  I think they are boring, and sometimes it's hard to mesh with things that are just unabashedly, no-strings-attached, given let alone open up to something that has nothing to do with us. 

I had to write this because I have been thinking about it ever since I saw Robert Frank's photography exhibit at the MET. You can see one of my favorite pictures of his above.  I went with my sister over Thanksgiving and it was a part of the "American Stories" exhibit.  Critics lambasted Frank's work as it appeared in his publication of photos called, Americana, because it showed "the dark side" of America.  "Dark side?"  Really? Or just raw side? Life, perhaps as it is and not as it shoulda, coulda, woulda might be.  

Chill out folks, we get what we need.