J.B.I.C.
There are some things you do simply because it’s possible to do them:
Driving home from work barefoot.
Standing on the front lawn in a downpour, getting completely drenched, then toweling off and calling it the day’s shower.
Eating peanut butter right from the jar (spoon optional).
Buying a bouquet of pink and white alstroemeria blooms at the grocery store and randomly handing them out to strangers in the parking lot on your way back to your car.
Writing limericks.
Picking your nose at a four-way stop.
Opening an Argentinian Malbec and a Cabernet for dinner, when it’s just you and the cats.
These are rarely, if ever, items deliberately included on anyone’s to-do list. They tend toward the impulsive, the indulgent, or the “I deserve this because it’s been a hard day” reasoning—yep, even the nose-picking one—and I’ve yet to see them as accomplishments on anyone’s resume (though how fun would that be for a hiring manager in the right company? I’d certainly given that applicant at least a second look, and kudos for taking the risk).
On the continuum of what we do simply because we have the ability, I realize that not all activities are noble or decent or in any stretch of reasoning redemptive. There are too many that spring up from our less-than-laudable side and leave misery and a lot of mopping up in their tumultuous wakes. Freedom and choice are rich with possibility and fraught with dangers we often can’t see until we’ve made a choice (without that one key bit of additional information) and then we find ourselves facing more complicated and knottier decisions. By the time I get to that point, I’ve got my apology rehearsed. Driving home from work barefoot seems innocent enough until one is pulled over for having no brake lights. If, on mad impulse, one happened to fling one’s sandals into the back seat with Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend” blaring from the speakers, one knows it will be more difficult to retrieve said sandals if the kind but serious officer asks one to step out of the car (driving barefoot is legal in all fifty states, but not recommended. Just so you know).
There are lots of reasons NOT to do something just because I can.
But even with the risk of choosing unwisely, I still land on the side of impulsive indulgence most days. It is possible to overthink the easiest of options that life’s experience buffet lays out before us, or to second-guess your best intentions. The purity of an idea is to be respected and considered: “Let’s buy some gift cards and leave them on the windshields of cars parked outside the hospital’s emergency room”. If I stopped too long to wonder if I’d get corralled by the hospital security’s patrol car or winced at the expense, I’d probably talk myself out of it, and the good souls to whom those cars belong wouldn’t get to experience the gift of surprise (or even relief that dinner has now been taken care of for them). I believe in the inherent goodness of people. We tend toward decency far more often than malicious intent, no matter what the headlines tell us. I trust in the uncounted acts of thoughtfulness that never appear above or below the fold.
Back when I was a campus minister in a local parochial high school, I was offered the chance to chaperone a student immersion trip to Spain. With every six students who signed up, an adult got to go for free (those were the days, huh?). All expenses paid—airline tickets, transportation, lodging. An easy “yes”, right? Well, I’d never flown before, was committed to being claustrophobic, and didn’t even want to think about all that open water beneath the belly of the plane for seven and a half hours. I told the Spanish teacher I’d get back to him. It took me a week to figure this one out. I confided everything in a close friend and mentor, who kindly let me finish my back-and-forth position before blurting out (just as kindly, but…clearly) “Liz, some decisions in life are easy. This is one of them—GO!! Right. Ok. Got it. Three days later, I’m 35,000 feet above all that water with just enough Dramamine to keep me pleasantly in my seat and a pocket full of souvenir money (most of which landed in the till of a guitar craftsman in Granada the night before our return to the States. Oh my…Sting’s “Fragile” never sounded more beautiful than when I plucked its haunting melody from those nylon strings). One more day of thinking it through and I’d have missed learning where the phrase “Holy Toledo” comes from and seeing all those feral cats outside the Alhambra, alongside being chased by street vendors trying to sell me hand-crocheted table cloths. Those memories are mine now, all because I decided to do something that was possible.
I understand that not all of our options are as romantic, or subsidized. We still have to do the dishes, dust the furniture and driver responsibly. But when a ground-soaking downpour presents itself on a sleep-in Saturday morning, and one has nowhere to go, getting drenched and splashing in the muddy puddles near the trucks parked by the front deck is quite possibly the best decision one will make that day (having a dry towel handy was a slightly less-impulsive thought that tagged along with the “go out and get drenched” one. I grabbed one from the laundry room and felt rather clever). Plus, it counts as the day’s shower.
Just because I can.
