tonight, I was frustrated at myself for trying to perfect too many things. on a whim, I decided to counteract that tendency to want things to be in order, and poured some of my two day old black tea from a dining hall mug onto a paper plate with bits of leftover scrambled egg. I was playing basketball earlier and had ordered eggs from the student buttery downstairs. then, I deliberately dropped this plate rimmed with old tea straight onto the floor, right in the middle of my dorm bedroom, onto the dark, brown hardwood floor. the tea took up a big blob on my floor. the plate sat next to the tea. I could see some of the egg bits in the pool of tea. I left it there for the rest of the evening.
I would glance at it and I liked the way it made me feel. it gave off an interesting calming effect. if it happened by accident, i would have been annoyed by it. instead, I derived joy from it. it was still a nuisance since i kept having to walk around it, but i relished in my ability to end that nuisance at any time by just cleaning it up. I even decided to take out my swiffer, hooked on a new swiffer sheet, and just left it resting on the wall closest to the mess. it was as if the swiffer was radiating potential energy. I basked in the tension between the unused swiffer and the blatant mess on the floor.
